If you have ever had the pleasure of attending the annual San Carlos kindergarten lottery…..it is quite a treat. Mostly, it is a group of stressed out parents wondering what number they will pull. I spoke with a couple yesterday who had given their lottery pick some serious consideration. The mother had historically bad luck at pulling numbers and the father had very good luck…..you can guess which one pulled the number….and, yes, he pulled a very low number much to the delight of both of them. The perception is that pulling a low number will guarantee your child’s attendance at the school of your choice. The reality is that in recent years all of the schools have been very accommodating no matter what number has been pulled. That may change this year.
The San Carlos School District had anticipated between 315 and 358 Kindergarten signups. They received just over 400. White Oaks led the pack with 130 signups. It has room for 80.
How is the district going to handle this unanticipated influx of kindergartners? One of the possible solutions seems to center around increasing class sizes. Currently, kindergarten class sizes have been sitting at a 20:1 ratio. The SCSD is also a charter district, meaning they receive money on a per student basis. It also allows them to take students from outside the district limits. Usually, about 30 students who do not reside in the district attempt to enroll each year. Many of those students will not be able to enroll this year.
Mixed up in this latest problem for the SCSD is the underlying Measure B issue which will come before San Carlos voters in April. Measure B is the $78 a year parcel tax. If approved, the measure could keep class sizes low and help the district maintain their current staff and class offerings. For more information on Measure B, please click here. Additionally, information contained in this article was taken from the San Mateo Daily Journal. A complete copy of that article can be found by clicking here.
13 Comments
I’ve heard rumors that the gem streets in White Oaks neighborhood could go to a school other than White Oaks. In fact, I’ve heard they’d go to Heather which is quite a drive from these streets, especially considering how close the gem streets are to White Oaks school. I own a home on one of these gem streets so I’m biased, and I understand that nothing in life is guaranteed, but I bought my house assuming I’d get the resale for having a house that fed into White Oaks, plus a 1 1/2 block walk to school at some point.
Thus, I would opt for larger class sizes and restricting enrollment to only San Carlos residents vs. re-zoning the neighborhoods that feed into which school. Enrollment is likely to decline at some point in the next few years, and San Carlos should be wary of making long term changes that are harder to un-do when the demographics change. I have the demolition of San Carlos high school in mind when I say this. 🙂
The following post was emailed to me from Diane:
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the information. I think the most alarming items in your post was somewhat glossed over. Why am I paying a premium to live in San Carlos and have my kids go to San Carlos schools when kids from other districts can freely transfer into San Carlos Schools?
If there is any truth to the rumors mentioned in Concerned Homeowner’s post, people are going to become unglued. I also agree with Diane’s post. We pay a premium to live in San Carlos and the expectation is that we have superior schools. I know that Bob believes our schools are a major factor for San Carlos demand. It certainly was on our mind when we bought here three years ago. If any of the impacting or step-up in student teacher ratios is due to the impact of students from outside of San Carlos, I take issue with that. Especially considering the fact that they are now asking us for another parcel tax for all San Carlos homeowners to help our school district.
I’m a trustee on the school board, and a frequent visitor to Bob’s site. I enjoy a good blog!
I started to write a reply to the comments on this topic, but it got so big I thought it would be better to stash it over on my “trustee blog”. You can find it at http://www.olbert.com/board/?p=200.
BTW, it is not true that kids from other districts can freely transfer into San Carlos. The District only accepts new charter transfers when there is room (it didn’t last year, and almost certainly won’t this year).
Charter transfers accepted in prior years have a right, under the law, to continue to attend the school that admitted them.
I also agree about not over-reacting to enrollment surges. Unfortunately, the capacity crunch has been an issue for years, and I believe we are going to have to do something soon.
– Mark
I guess I took too long to write my first response :). Let me comment on something JBB said.
The primary reason San Carlos adopted the charter school model years ago was financial: the State gives us more money per pupil when our schools are charters than when they are traditional schools. That’s because charter schools are funded based on State-wide averages, and historically San Carlos’ schools, on their own, were funded below average. So converting to charters made great financial sense.
Converting to charter schools also allowed the District to more easily accept out-of-district transfers. Moving a student from one traditional (i.e., non-charter) district to another requires the concurrence of both the district gaining the student and the district losing the student. Any district that gets paid based on the number of students — which is most of them — is therefore naturally going to tend to refuse transfer requests.
In a charter transfer, the district losing the student has no say; the decision is solely up to the family, provided the charter school has room.
Up until a few years ago the District had excess capacity at its schools. Accepting charter transfers used that “idle” capacity and brought more money into the District.
This benefited residents by allowing us to have a richer program than would otherwise have been possible. Put another way, by bringing more money into the District, charter conversion reduced the amount of money the District would have had to raise from the local community, through higher taxes and increased philanthropic giving, to build the high-quality educational program that everyone values today.
That win/win formula breaks down when capacity gets tight. But please keep in mind that it worked to everyone’s benefit for years.
The District is reducing the number of charter transfers it serves. But that takes time, because, under law, once a charter student is accepted he or she has the right to continue to attend that school.
If boundry changes are made this year, will they impact this years enrollment challanges?
To the best of my knowledge, no. Any changes would affect future years, not the current year.
Also, most districts tend to “phase” in these kinds of changes, by grandfathering siblings of students currently enrolled at a school whose boundary was changed.
– Mark
Sorry, I thought I’d replied to this last night…
While it’s up to the Board to decide how quickly to implement boundary changes, I’d be shocked if changes weren’t phased in over a period of time. That’s typically done by applying the new boundaries to new families, and grandfathering siblings of currently enrolled resident students under the old boundaries.
Mark,
Thank you so much for commenting, and providing a link to your blog. Of course, I’m sad to see the rumors confirmed about implementing boundary changes. I agree with JBB above about the ‘unglued’ part. I paid a premium to live in White Oaks only now to (a) not be able to send my kids there (we have not started yet, and so won’t get the grandfather benefit if this is implemented before 2010), and (b) won’t be able to market as such if/when we sell this starter home’. I can say I probably wouldn’t buy a house when I’d have to drive my kids way out of the way to go to school, plus we won’t live near any of my kids’ friends. So much for the neighborliness of San Carlos.
That said, it makes much more geographic/demographic sense to do a complete redistricting and keep the geography lines somewhat clean and consistent.
I recently (last 6 months) saw a powerpoint presentation done by the school board (I think they were the author) about declining enrollment in 5 years in San Carlos. What happened to that analysis? Was it way off? If it’s not way off and still applies, redistricting seems like a drastic step to take for a short term problem.
Thank you
I’d like to add that I have nothing against Heather Elementary school. Based on my comments, it may seem like I do, and it has nothing to do with that. I’m sure it’s a fine school with a lot to offer. It’s more about ensuring that leadership is making logical, reasonable, long-term decisions that benefit the entire community.
I keep hearing about people who are unhappy about buying a house in White Oaks but having to send their children to Heather and I’m a little amazed. Even ten years ago when we moved here, our real estate agent was very very clear that school placement was not a guarantee. We came here evaluating the San Carlos school system as a whole, not just White Oaks since we realized we could end up at another school.
I understand not being able to walk to school is a small loss but Heather is hardly even a short drive further. As for friends, despite attending the nearby school my childrens friends are still scattered all over San Carlos.
Mark mentioned the enrollment study and how it stated there would be a decline in enrollment. Does anyone have a copy of this study? How much does the school district rely on this study vs. current enrollment issues? There are so many families with young children and young couples (pre-children) still moving to this city. Is it time to do a new study?
Mark,
On the whole, I agree that everyone has really gone overboard with their reactions. However, I also want to point out that the one single reason that many people move to San Carlos is because it is a small town and offers us the opportunity to raise our kids in a real “neighborhood”. When I go downtown, we always see several people we know.
When we walk over to play on the school playground on the weekend – there are always a few of my son’s friends there. I live within easy walking distance of White Oaks school — and the thought of having to drive my children to Heather — which any way you package it is NOT within walking distance of homes that may be redistricted — defeats the whole reason that I specifically picked a home within walking distance of an elementary school.
I have thought this through very carefully, and I have to say that if we were being moved to Brittian Acres, which isn’t as close but where we could still walk, I would not be as upset because I fundamentally do believe that the perceived difference in the schools (which is mostly based on API test scores) is statistically irrelevant. Now — with that said, while I agree that the schools belong to the entire community, not just the surrounding neighborhood, I do think think that the board is obligated to try and keep kids in their “neighborhood” as much as possible — not because their neighborhood is superior, but because a neighborhood school that you can walk to and go to on weekends to play is a huge factor in what makes San Carlos a small town, and that is why I selected this town to raise my children in.