Saratoga News

Oak Street students could move during building repairs

Superintendent says move preferable to portables plan

Parents protest 'busing'

By John Pancharian

Saratoga Elementary School students may soon attend school in San Jose. Some parents in the Saratoga Union School District voiced concerns at a June 16 public hearing about proposed plans to move the entire Oak Street campus to Strawberry Park School in the Moreland School District. The move, intended to take students out of the way of planned Measure D construction during the 1999-2000 school year, is being considered as an alternative to placing classrooms in portable trailers in the field while workers renovate the campus.

And not everybody likes the idea.

"People don't buy homes in Saratoga to have their kids bused to San Jose," said one parent, speaking anonymously. "When we voted for this bond measure, there was never any mention of busing students outside of Saratoga." The parent said she also thinks the district has railroaded parents into accepting the plan because the letter informing them of the June 16 meeting came only four days prior to the meeting--and after school had already let out.

The notion to move the school first arose in a conversation between SUSD Superintendent Mary Gardner and Moreland Superintendent Jim Ritchie on June 3, according to Gardner. Gardner said she took the idea to the school board June 9, then met June 10 with staff at Saratoga School--whom she said unanimously supported the idea. The board then met June 23 to hold a second public hearing and perhaps decide the matter--and Gardner said the district sent out letters to announce that meeting June 18.

Gardner said if things have happened quickly, it is because the district must decide the issue in time to arrange ground leveling for the portables. If the board decides to place classes in portables, workers must begin preparing the Oak Street fields this summer, she said.

But some parents said they also think the district's description of schooling in portables during the construction went from "rosy" to "horrible" once the new option was known, and they wonder about the logistics of busing students to San Jose.

"I think the main issue is where Strawberry Park is located, and is it a safe location," one parent said.

Gardner agrees the transportation issue is "a major concern," but said she thinks moving the campus would "be better instructionally." She also said the district stands to save about $400,000 by moving rather than using portables. "If people are really against it," she added, "We won't go."

Should the board approve the move for Saratoga Elementary, it will then discuss the possibility of moving sixth-graders from Redwood Middle School to the same location during the same year.

SUSD plans to begin construction in the summer following the 1998-99 school year, continue during the 1999-2000 year and finish the following summer by August--if the campus is relocated. Gardner said the completion date may be pushed back to October if the district uses portables.

"But," she said, "I've learned that in construction, not all things will go as planned."

Moreland has leased the now-vacant Strawberry Park School site to the Campbell Union Elementary District while it renovated schools, and has used the site itself for the same reason. The site has a student capacity of "easily 700," Moreland business manager Ron Fortson said. He also offered to try to integrate Saratoga students into Moreland bus routes.

The site cost the Campbell school district $12,000 per month, not including utilities.

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