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Bullis Charter School is asking the Santa Clara County Office of Education to renew its charter for seven years, with a decision expected next month.
The Santa Clara County Board of Education, which authorizes Bullis’ charter, held a public hearing on Wednesday, July 17, about the school’s renewal petition, with a final vote expected on Aug. 26.
The board has pressed Bullis in recent years to serve more underrepresented students, warning that its charter renewal could be at risk if action isn’t taken. The school’s current charter term is set to expire on June 30, 2025.
At Wednesday’s hearing, board members posed dozens of questions about the charter renewal to Bullis officials, county staff and officials from the Los Altos School District. Board members didn’t reveal how they’d vote on the renewal request, focusing instead on asking questions and in some cases requesting additional information.
Bullis is located within the Los Altos School District and has had a contentious relationship with the district since its inception two decades ago. The district and charter school have repeatedly been at odds, butting heads publicly numerous times.
Bullis presents case for charter renewal
In her presentation to the board, Bullis Superintendent Maureen Israel asked for a seven-year renewal, pointing to high student achievement on state tests, the wide array of classes offered at Bullis and the support available for students, including those who are learning English and those with disabilities.
“For the past 20 years, we have been committed to building a school that serves all students,” Israel said. “This continues to be our priority and our focus for the next 20 years and beyond.”
In its renewal petition, Bullis states that it is considered a “high performing” charter school by the California Department of Education, and that state law says that its petition therefore “shall” be renewed.
County staff told the board that there are still certain circumstances under which the board can opt to not renew the charter. Among them is if it’s determined that the school “is not serving all pupils who wish to attend,” and the school is then given notice and an opportunity to fix the problem.
Bullis’ student demographics raise concerns
The county board has issued two notices to Bullis about this issue, first in May 2021 and again in August 2023. The county raised concerns about the makeup of the school’s student body, in particular what it describes as the underrepresentation of Latino students, students learning English, low-income students and students with disabilities.
According to county staff, Bullis submitted a corrective action plan and responses to these notices, and the county plans to consider Bullis’ work as it reviews the renewal petition.
Israel told the Voice that Bullis disputes that it is not serving all students and said that because it can’t enroll all students who apply, it uses a random lottery to select students, in line with the practice of other charter schools.
After the first notice in 2021, Bullis got county approval to change its admissions preferences to prioritize students from low-income families. Specifically, students who qualify for free or reduced price meals and live within the Los Altos School District’s boundaries get second priority in the enrollment lottery after siblings of current charter school students who live within the district’s boundaries. The preference for low-income students is capped at 10% of the available openings at each grade level.
A preference was also added for students who qualify for free or reduced price meals who live outside of the district boundaries. That preference doesn’t have a cap, but is the second to last preference on the list.
The school has also hired a community engagement director, Israel said.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Israel said that it was unfortunate that there is a “false narrative” about the students Bullis serves, which she said is a barrier the school has to try to work around.
“It’s really tough when I’m up against a negative narrative that’s coming from the local community – claiming that we don’t serve special ed, claiming that we don’t serve (English learners), claiming that we’re discriminating,” Israel said. “It’s really hard to get past that, when that’s the dialogue that’s being thrown out consistently.”
Charter school staff point to improvements
Israel presented data to the board showing an increase in enrollment of certain student groups. Specifically, 3.5% of Bullis’ students were considered socioeconomically disadvantaged last school year, compared to 1.9% the year before, according to the data Israel showed. Students with disabilities increased from 6.9% to 7.79% and those learning English increased from 6.1% to 8.96%, according to Israel.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Los Altos School District board President Bryan Johnson raised concerns to the board about the charter school’s renewal petition, and said that the data presented was insufficient.
“These increases, even if correct, do not close the gaps with district demographics,” Johnson said. “In fact, increases of that size are only possible because they are relative to incredibly low baselines that have not moved in a decade or more. We have no confidence that this one-year trend will continue if this renewal petition is approved as-is.”
Johnson suggested changes that could be made, including removing the 10% cap on the preference for students living in the district’s boundaries who qualify for free or reduced price meals and moving it to the first position, ahead of the sibling preference. That is something that Bullis board member Andrea Eyring pushed back against, stressing the importance of siblings being able to go to school together.
Johnson also proposed having Bullis move to a new school that the district plans to construct on a parcel of land in Mountain View that it purchased several years ago. The site, located in the San Antonio shopping center, is in a less wealthy area than much of the Los Altos School District, which has boundaries extending into Mountain View. Bullis currently shares space on both of the district’s junior high campuses.
Eyring argued that the Mountain View site wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate the roughly 1,000 students attending Bullis, and said that the school district had declined a request from the charter school to have a confidentiality agreement around conversations about the site.
Johnson told the Voice that the last time the school district and Bullis negotiated entirely behind closed doors, there was community outcry over the proposed deal, and the Los Altos school board is “not inclined to repeat that mistake.”
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, 30 members of the public turned out to speak on the renewal petition. The vast majority were Bullis parents, students, teachers and staff praising the school.
One parent spoke about how she valued the “strong sense of community” at the school and said her family had felt welcomed and supported since joining.
“I’m grateful for the friendships and connections we’ve made through Bullis and proud to be part of such a positive, inclusive and engaged community that provides my children with a sense of belonging and responsibility to others,” the parent said.
Board members pose questions about renewal request
After hearing the public comments, as well as presentations from Bullis and the Los Altos School District, the board members asked a wide array of questions about the renewal petition.
Board members covered topics including possible changes to the enrollment preferences, how the school supports students with disabilities, the status of discussions over moving Bullis to the site in Mountain View and the amount of the school’s budget that comes from family donations.
Board members also asked for additional data on various areas, including comparing Bullis’ demographics to that of the Los Altos School District.
The county charter school department is reviewing the charter renewal petition and plans to have a full analysis completed in the upcoming weeks, county staff said at the meeting. The staff’s recommendation is expected to be published on the county office of education’s website by Aug. 11, with the decision hearing scheduled for Aug. 26.
If Bullis is shut down and 90% of the Bullis students enroll in other LASD schools, it will wreak havoc with LASD’s budget in every regard. They will be faced with the question of what to do with this site at Kohl’s that they bought so long ago. One could argue that what should go there would be a 300-400 student neighborhood elementary school similar to LASD’s other elementary schools. However, all schools within LASD will be faced with an enrollment surge from the returning Bullis students. They’ll need to activate 4 more portable buildings at each existing school and add over 100 students on average in those rooms. By opening the new school at San Antonio as a neighborhood elementary school they might then hold that down to just 3 new portable buildings at the existing elementary schools.
But the main impact is that LASD is currently spending $25,000 for each of over 3000 enrolled students while funding Bullis with less than half that amount. So the money that comes back will not be able to allow continuing to spend as much on educating the existing students. Since there are 1100 Bullis students, the 1000 that return will have to draw resources from the existing
students. It will be a big change.
Opening the new school at San Antonio will be very expensive for LASD so that would be the first place to look for economy of scale to help partly offset the increased demand for LASD resources. It really is not economically feasible for LASD to add a 10th school if it has to operate it by itself. LASD has served as many as 5000 students at the existing schools, so adding Bullis back and serving 4300 at the existing schools should be quite feasible. No need to build a new school.
BCS has never made meaningful progress in closing the demographic gap with the district. Despite being warned over the decades, incremental progress has only recently been made, likely only spurred by the upcoming renewal vote. As Johnson points out, this progress has been minimal.
If the charter is renewed, it’s reasonable to assume that BCS might once again neglect the demographic gap until the next renewal hearing approaches.
The Board of Education should carefully examine the turnover of BCS principals and Board members and consider whether there is any evidence that this or future BCS Boards and Administrators will act with a long-term focus vs optimizing for their own children’s experiences and then terming out.
Ending the charter abruptly in August 2025 would disrupt the lives of many on both sides. Instead, why not consider allowing current families to remain at BCS until they complete their educational journey while prohibiting new families from enrolling in the future?