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Residents asking to change school district boundaries
By Leigh Ann Maze
A group of Saratoga residents who live within the boundaries of the Moreland and Union School District submitted a petition to the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) Dec. 8. They are requesting an extension of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union and Saratoga Union School District (SUSD) boundaries to include their homes.
The petitioners gathered signatures from 25 percent of the registered voters in the disputed area, the Vineyards of Saratoga, to have their request considered by the Santa Clara County Committee on School District Organization. The committee has 120 days after the scheduled March 22 hearing on the territory transfer petition to make a decision.
The Vineyards of Saratoga is a 165-unit condominium complex on Saratoga Avenue near Highway 85. The area is bordered on either side by neighborhoods that are part of the SUSD. "We are a group of homeowners in a pocket that is surrounded by the SUSD," said Christine Favero, a Vineyards of Saratoga resident and chief petitioner. "It doesn't make sense that we're not in the same school district as the surrounding area."
Although the Vineyards of Saratoga has traditionally been a senior community since it was built in the 1970s, Favero said the demographics are changing.
The SUSD boundaries have been challenged many times before because they do not include the entire city of Saratoga and often split neighborhoods. The current school boundaries have changed very little since they were first drawn more than 50 years ago, according to SCCOE senior research analyst Larry Shirey.
Although school district border disputes involving the SUSD have been quiet for the last year and a half, according to Shirey, there have been six territory transfer petitions from neighboring districts involving the SUSD since 1994.
Of those six petitions only one succeeded in changing the boundaries. In 1997, 53 Twain Court area residents were transferred from the Campbell Union School District to the SUSD. The original petition was denied by the committee, and was appealed by Twain Court area residents to the state Board of Education, which voted in favor of it. The residents were then able to hold an election on the petition in November 1997, voting in favor of the transfer.
The many controversial petitions prompted the committee to do a complete study on school district organization in the West Valley area in 1997. The year-long study concluded that redrawing the SUSD district boundaries to match those of the city was not feasible for financial reasons.
"After the West Valley study, the SUSD school board took a position that they would not gradually change the SUSD boundaries by incorporating small areas one at a time," said SUSD superintendent Mary Gardener.
A public hearing on the Vineyards of Saratoga Homeowner's Association territory transfer petition will be held on March 22 at 8 p.m. in the Saratoga High School cafeteria.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
