Last night we made a few decisions, the most important being that finally we changed the boundaries of the “Hidden Valley” area of San Carlos to be part of the Heather attendance area. It was formerly a “choice” area between Heather and Arundel, which caused a lot of confusion, enrollment issues at Arundel, and strange situations where folks who lived within walking distance from Arundel couldn’t go there because someone in Hidden Valley got a higher lottery number than they did. Although this decision will not completely fix our boundary and enrollment problems, it is a good first step. It is my hope that by next year this time we will pass a more comprehensive boundary change which will address issues at White Oaks and some other schools.
We also agreed on Board meeting protocols and an attendee guide to meetings which will be printed out for attendees at meetings. I think this will be very helpful. Also we discussed, but did not act on, the issue of categorical funding from the sites and potentially redeploying those funds so the District would have flexibility where to spend them. Most of us agreed it was prudent to wait and see how our budget situation unfolded. I specifically requested that if we were ever to decide whether or not to take those resources away from the sites, that we would need a plan from the schools on what they would have spent the money on. This will give us a basis of comparison when we are making budget cut decisions.
We set the community Town Hall meeting to discuss budget priorities for March 26th. Mark your calendars!
Last by not least, yesterday we heard that the new parcel tax measure has an official name — it will be Measure B!
