The appellate court affirmed Saratoga resident Aaron Katz's claim that students living in his Bonnet Way home could attend school in either Saratoga or Campbell schools since his property straddles the border between the two districts.

Katz originally filed the claim in 1997, when the Los Gatos­Saratoga Joint Union High School District told the renters of his house that their children could not attend Saratoga High School since the majority of the property is in the Campbell Union High School District. The school district appealed the court's decision in favor of Katz and several subsequent decisions.

But on March 25, the court interpreted the Education Code to read that if any part of a property is within a school district's boundaries, the home is considered part of that district.

Pat Salzman, secretary to the Los Gatos­Saratoga district superintendent, said the property's residents were denied enrollment because a number of factors indicated it is part of another district.

"For that little tiny triangle across the back of his lot, our school district gets something like $2.87," she said. "If the greater portion is in the Campbell district, and taxes go to Campbell High School District and folks living in that property would be voting for board members in that district, it would lead one to believe it was a Campbell High School District property."

Katz said there were no questions about high school attendance for about 20 years, and there have never been any from the elementary and middle school districts. He said the high school district, however, realized it was not receiving very much money from him.

"The reason they fault me is they don't want to educate students unless they come from property from which they get enough property tax," he said.

Katz said the district would only receive about $200 more per year if it were entitled to all of his educational parcel taxes. He said the district has likely spent more on the court case than it costs to educate students in his house. The district's legal costs were not available at press time.

Whatever amount it will lose, though, the district must now admit students from any property partly within its boundaries. Salzman said she thought there were approximately a dozen homes that straddled boundary lines.

Nine of those are in the Guadalupe Mines housing development in San Jose near eastern Los Gatos. She said four of those homes were previously determined to be in the Los Gatos­Saratoga high school district and the other five in the Campbell district. Another property on or near Cox Avenue is similarly split between Campbell and Fremont union high school districts.

"The rule of thumb here was if the property has a greater portion in Fremont or Campbell district, the child goes to school in that district," Salzman said. "We just always felt it was the right thing to do."

Katz said the court's decision could affect not only Santa Clara County school districts, but also those throughout the state.

"There are over 6,100 school districts in the state of California," he said. "It has the potential of impacting a large number of districts."

Salzman said that, though students on split property now have "every right" to enroll in the district, she didn't expect an influx of new students since there were not many such residences.

"Part of the situation here was when this came up and became a case, there was no precedent," she said. "Now there's precedent."

Salzman said she did not know if the district would appeal the decision again. Superintendent Cindy Ranii was on vacation and could not comment.