Photograph by Robert Scheer
Saratoga High students head for home.
By Clarence Cromwell
There's a line that crosses Allendale Avenue near the corner of Dolphin Drive and continues straight north to cleave a city block in half along back fences.
On one side of the line, kids go to well-named, well-funded schools, and houses are worth about 10 percent more; on the other side, people want to move the line.
And they're in for a tough fight.
The line is the boundary between Saratoga and Campbell school districts, and it's part of a county study to decide exactly where to place the boundaries of eight school districts. Any part of the boundary between the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District and the Campbell Union High School District could be affected.
County officials decided to do the study after receiving 25 requests for information from neighborhood groups or individuals who wish to join the Saratoga-Los Gatos Joint Union High School District.
Three parent groups are petitioning to move from Campbell schools to Saratoga's elementary and high school districts. On Dolphin Drive, students walk to Campbell schools, whereas children around the block, on Portos Drive, attend Saratoga Schools. Dolphin Drive parents want the line moved two blocks east, where it would split a different block up the middle and allow their kids to attend elementary and high schools with other kids from the city they live in. Other petitions are pending in the Sobey Oaks area and the Emerald Court area, both in Saratoga. Five petitions by mountain area parents have been granted in the recent past, moving them from the Loma Prieta School District to Los Gatos schools. Also in Los Gatos, the New Cities development company has raised concerns about school boundaries on its Guadalupe Mines Road site: The school district boundaries will divide some of the developer's 188 houses in half when they're built, and it will be hard to explain to potential buyers that the kitchen belongs to Los Gatos schools, while the master bath belongs to Union School District. The builder has proposed to move boundaries so they'll follow streets or property lines without splitting parcels.
However, the Santa Clara County Committee on School District Organization wants to put a temporary hold on petitions from people who want to switch from one school district to another. First, the committee wants to do a boundary study of 11 school districts in the West Valley area.
School boundaries, drawn decades ago when many subdivisions were still farmland, don't follow the boundaries of cities, or even neighborhoods. In places, kids across the street from each other go to different schools, and some kids have to walk several blocks through another school district to get to school. Four elementary school districts claim children from different parts of Saratoga.
The matter is further complicated by the number of overlapping school districts in the area. Over the top of Saratoga schools is the Los Gatos-Saratoga High School district; likewise, Campbell's elementary and high schools are separate districts with the same borders.
Some parents are challenging the hard-to-defend borders to get their kids into prestigious Los Gatos and Saratoga schools. It started three years ago; so many kids from fringe areas want to go to school here that the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District decided not to let them walk across district lines. Most of the district's money comes from property tax, said Tod Likins, superintendent of the high school district. Students can attend Los Gatos and Saratoga schools if parents ask the county to move their property into the district, Likins said, in a way annexing their own land onto the school district.
Campbell school districts, however, fighting to save their tax base, oppose every attempt to switch property into the Saratoga elementary and high school districts.
The County Office of Education, which has authority over school district boundaries, launched its study to end the disputes about school boundaries. The open-ended study could result in fine-tuning the lines, reshaping districts or even merging a number of districts. Or it could result in no change at all.
The study area comprises the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District and the Campbell Union High School District. It also includes eight contiguous elementary school districts within the high school districts.
Senior Research Analyst Larry Shirey said the county office of education has hired a consultant to study the controversial boundary issue. The study should take six to 12 months, depending on how the consultant investigates the question.
After approval by the obscure County Committee on School District Organization and the State Board of Education, any plan to change school districts must be approved by voters--but there's no guarantee that all the voters in the school districts will get to vote on the issue. That matter is up to the state.
The process is likely to become as bogged down in politics as the petitions to move boundaries, Likins said.
"It would not be too difficult to draw boundary lines, but then you get into the political part of it," Likins said.
Redrawing boundaries will mean taking students and taxable land from other districts, Likins explained. "And frankly, they don't want to lose either."
It may be a loss for districts, but for parents who manage to join the Saratoga or Los Gatos school districts, the school name is as good as a check in their pocket. Saratoga and Los Gatos schools mean they can eventually sell their houses for more money, a recent study says, but in the meantime they won't have to pay higher taxes on the increase in property value.
Moving a property from Campbell to Saratoga schools increases the value at least 10 percent, according to a study commissioned in 1995 by the county office of education. Attkisson & Semas real estate appraisers surveyed local real estate firms before drawing that conclusion.
Contempo sales associate Judi Carollo concurred, explaining that good schools are a high priority with parents.
"If it's in the Los Gatos or Saratoga schools you'll get more [than you would] for a piece of property in the Campbell or Union school district," Carollo said.
A county appraiser explained that the county won't raise property assessments after a change in school districts because assessments are based on the last sale and adjusted by a small percentage each year.
The property tax percentages assessed in the two districts, however, may differ slightly.
The increase in property value has been Campbell schools' argument against most of the property transfers: A state law forbids transfers made solely to increase property value. In all three pending cases Campbell schools alleged that parents seek financial gains.
Dan Gaudreau, a property owner in the Emerald Hills area, said he just wanted to send his kids to school in Saratoga, not to sell his house. It's the schools that are concerned with money, he countered: "To Campbell, it really does mean thousands of dollars in taxes."
Parents are petitioning for the redistricting on the grounds that it's safer to walk to Saratoga schools--parents in all three cases argued that there's more traffic on the way to Campbell schools--and because their kids identify more with the Saratoga community than with Campbell.
"We are part of Saratoga, and we should belong to Saratoga schools," Emerald Hills parent Asha Kumar said.
Marlene Duffin, a member of the county committee that rules on district transfers, said she's voted yes on all the applications except the most recent, the Emerald Hills petition, which she wanted to delay in order to rely on the consultant instead.
Duffin would like to see a plan for the most efficient use of all the districts' resources, she said.
The districts must accommodate parents who feel strongly about their children's educations, Duffin added; otherwise, the parents will turn to private schools or force educators to accept radical plans like school vouchers.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, March 5, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.