Two years ago the Saratoga Union School District approached this community and asked support for passing a $40 million bond issue. Many people who do not have small children voted for the bonds because we believe in excellent public education; we care about the children in our community and because it was the right thing to do.
I doubt that many residents who voted for the bond issue envisioned that the money would be used to raze historical structures, to cut down heritage trees, to circumvent the city's planning process or to change traffic patterns without the opportunity for broad community discussion.
In anyone's estimation, $40 million is a huge sum of money for capital improvements in a small school district. The improvements and infrastructure must serve future generations as well as today's children, so our decision-making must be careful and far-sighted.
The current problems with expansion are greatly exacerbated by earlier, and short-sighted decisions to sell "excess" school sites and "excess" land. The district promised that if the bonds were approved, the moneys would be spent carefully, thoughtfully and with extra levels of community review.
Instead, the district seems to be on the verge of a breach of faith with this community. The problems are not with general direction and priorities, but rather with style and process.
The district has announced it will vote to exempt itself from local planning and zoning regulations so that the city will have no say in projects like the expansion of Saratoga School. It would have been far preferable for the district to first try to work with the city, as others in this community do. If those educational objectives were threatened, the school board could certainly have voted to exempt itself then.
It insults our intelligence to hear a school board member argue publicly that 100-year-old trees must be removed because of the danger to students from "limb drop." Has the school board initiated disciplinary proceedings against its administrators for allowing students to play under those trees last year and the year before? Has the school board requested that the city remove the eucalyptus from the median of Fruitvale Avenue, because children walk under and are driven under those trees daily en route to Redwood School?
Most obviously, why did the district locate a portable classroom under one of the "dangerous" old eucalyptus trees? Anything can happen, but I would guess that children will be at a far greater risk from the increased traffic and the change in traffic patterns at the Saratoga School than they will be from "limb drop."
It is also disturbing to hear school-board members threaten that they will hold the city accountable for up to $1 million if the city delays or does not approve the district's plans, before there has even been an opportunity for the city to review and discuss those plans. (The city had requested that the district share its plans early on, but the district declined).
During very difficult financial times, the city of Saratoga has gone far out of its way to assist school districts within its jurisdiction through city funding of programs such as crossing guards and school resource officers. The obligation and commitment should be mutual.
The questions of style and process with the Saratoga Union School District are not limited to the Oak Street controversy. Many parents whose children are to be moved to the Strawberry Park School in San Jose are upset or angry, not so much by the decision-making as by the perceived lack of a fair hearing.
A large number of Saratogans who live outside the SUSD boundaries are still licking their wounds from the recent re-districting conflict. The SUSD was not the primary decision-making body in that dispute, but many Saratoga parents felt that the district gave them short shrift, even less empathy and treated them like Philistines at the gate. It was not the district's finest hour.
The SUSD Board of Trustees and administration would do well to step back and re-assess their approach to sensitive community issues. There is room for more emphasis upon governance by inclusion, upon consensus building and upon conflict resolution. Hopefully, that is the kind of governance we want to model for our students as well.
Erna Jackman is a longtime Saratoga resident and frequent volunteer at the Saratoga School.
Saratoga, California Since 1975
