Saratoga News

County committee rejects two requests for district transfers

By John Pancharian

Residents in the Camino Barco neighborhood of Saratoga will not be included in the Saratoga Union School District.

The Santa Clara County Committee on School District Organization unanimously decided May 27 not to allow petitioners in the area to move from the Campbell Union School District into Saratoga schools. The petitioners have filed a statement of intent to appeal the decision to the state Board of Education.

On the same day, the committee also denied Los Gatos residents in the Santa Rosa area--also known as the Alta Vista area--permission to transfer into the Los Gatos Union School District from the Union School District in Campbell. Residents there have also filed an intent to appeal.

The two petitions were the first to reach the committee for a decision since the 1997 areawide study, sending a signal to other potential petitioners that they are likely to encounter resistance at the county level.

Santa Clara County Office of Education staff prepared feasibility studies on both transfer petitions. A primary reason cited for transfer by both neighborhoods was their sense of community identity. But, in both cases, the studies concluded the petitioners failed to demonstrate their neighborhood had "community-identity issues that are unique from other areas of the city of Saratoga that are not within SUSD."

With doubts such as these, staffers and county committee members thought it was possible the petitioners mostly wanted the increase in property value--10 percent to 20 percent according to most real estate agents--that accompanies residence in Los Gatos and Saratoga school districts.

Transfers for economic reasons are not allowed by the state.

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