District Chief Business Official Ellen Tipton updated board members of the status of the sale at an Oct. 26 meeting. The .45-acre property is located adjacent to the upper field behind Redwood Middle School. The district will gain about $125,000 from the property sale; the property will consequently be divided by the two neighboring homeowners who are buying it and fencing it off to prohibit student access. Tipton said revenue from the sale will be placed into the district's facilities fund.

The sale came about when the two homeowners expressed an interest in buying the land, which can't be used by the school, in November 2003, Tipton said. The homeowners had initially offered a price that was below assessed value, but after the property was properly assessed, Tipton said, they increased their offering price.

"It's a great deal for them, and it's the right decision for the school," said board member John Waite.

Tipton said the property has been "a nuisance" for the school staff to keep students from loitering on and to maintain, rather than an asset to the district. Waite said he has seen students doing bicycle tricks and hanging around on the property unsupervised after school.

In October 1998, two 8-year-old students found a stolen shotgun, ammunition and a hunting knife in a backpack beneath a bush on the property. The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department responded to the incident, booking the weaponry as found property of a neighbor on Shadow Oaks Way.

Tipton said she'll be glad once the settlement agreement is signed between the district and the neighbors and the property is fenced off from students, hopefully by the end of November.

In addition, board members discussed updating the district's problem-resolution policy, comparing it to policies in the Los Gatos, Cupertino and Moreland school districts as well as that of the California School Boards Association.

Waite said the item came up for discussion to encourage open communication in the district and to discourage "pent-up parking lot talk" amongst parents. Identifying problems and solving them early on, he said, will hopefully prevent gossip from building up. The policy allows parents to bring forward a concern to the school district and have it resolved through a problem-resolution process. School personnel are required to respond to the concern within three school days.

"We need to make sure that the administration responds in a reasonable amount of time so that people feel they are being heard," said board secretary Michael Gipe. "We want to encourage resolution of the complaint at the lowest level possible."

If a resolution cannot be obtained through communication with a teacher, principal or the superintendent, the problem can lastly be appealed to the school board, depending on where the concern began. Superintendent Lane Weiss and district staff will be enhancing the policy, with input from staff and administrators, to refine its wording in a user-friendly manner that's similar to the CSBA format. The school board is expected to conduct a first reading of the new policy at a Nov. 9 meeting, with adoption at the Nov. 23 meeting.

Weiss also formally introduced the district's new director of human resources, Kym Plaing, to the board members. She replaces Margie Singleton, who recently retired.