Saratoga News

A real solution would cost districts too much

High school district board member Nancy Crampton hit the nail on the head when she said the end result of the time, energy and money spent trying to resolve the thorny issue of redrawing school boundaries will be to end up where the process started.

And the irony is that for the Los Gatos and Saratoga elementary school districts and the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District, the options that appear to be no solution at all would be the best solutions.

Now that the numbers have been studied and analyzed, board members from Los Gatos and Saratoga elementary and high school districts are in agreement: Any tampering with the current boundaries would spell disaster. In the high school district alone, the estimate for capital facilities to accommodate some 900 new students is $25 million.

That's unfortunate for those families who live in Los Gatos and Saratoga but outside the school district boundaries. We believe most of those people are sincere when they argue that being outside the district negatively affects their "sense of community."

The question now is: Will the county Committee on School District Organization heed the wishes of these three school districts?

It was the county Office of Education, after all, that initiated the study. That body was tired of hearing appeals for interdistrict transfers.

While the "no-solution scenarios" may be the best solutions for the three Los Gatos and Saratoga districts, that would leave things pretty much as they were when the county decided to seek a solution. The county wanted to find a real solution to its problem of district transfers.

If redrawing boundaries were to impose a mere inconvenience to the three West Valley school districts, we'd recommend that the county override the wishes of the districts.

The numbers, however, show that redrawing boundaries would have dramatic financial repercussions and would drastically increase the student population in these districts. We must conclude, therefore, that the scenarios that offer no real solution are the best solutions.

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