Saratoga News

LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS EXPAND TO INCLUDE BEAR CREEK WAY

Los Gatos addresses were actually within Santa Cruz district

By Shari Kaplan

Residents of Bear Creek Way in the Santa Cruz mountains are now well on their way to being officially part of the Lakeside Joint School District and the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District--which they thought they'd been part of all along.

On March 19, trustees voted unanimously to approve the transfer of territory from the San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District to the two local school districts.

The Santa Cruz County Office of Education asked the board to act after a formal petition submitted by registered voters on Bear Creek Way late last year had been reviewed by the Santa Clara and Santa Cruz county committees on school district organization. The Santa Cruz county clerk and superintendent of schools have approved the petition.

All three school district boards have approved the transfer, as has the Santa Clara County committee on school district organization, said Larry Shirey of the Santa Clara County Office of Education's Center for Educational Planning.

The corresponding committee in Santa Cruz is scheduled to vote in mid-April.

Following this final approval, the counties' offices of education will file paperwork with all the necessary entities, including the State Board of Education, State Board of Equalization and county tax assessors and registrars of voters. Bear Creek Way families will officially be part of the Los Gatos districts by July 1, 1997.

Although Bear Creek Way children have been attending Los Gatos schools for approximately 30 years and their homes have Los Gatos addresses, the unincorporated land is actually within Santa Cruz's San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District. Bear Creek families discovered this about two years ago, when the street name was changed from Bear Creek Road and a new house-numbering system was implemented.

Last year, residents phoned and wrote letters favoring the territory transfer to the Santa Cruz and Santa Clara county schools chiefs as well as to Los Gatos Superintendent Tod Likins and Lakeside Superintendent Martin St. John. The district boards have no problem with the transfer, especially since the number of school-age children living on Bear Creek Way is not large enough to pose any enrollment problem to local schools.