California's Proposition 39 provides the guidelines for facilities allocation for public charter schools. It requires that public school districts like LASD provide reasonably equivalent facilities to charter schools for in-district students, or those students who reside within the boundaries of the public school district. Prop. 39 includes an annual process to allocate facilities based on the number of in-district students enrolled in the charter. The Prop. 39 facilities allocation process has been historically contentious and divisive for our local community.

In order to avoid the contentious Prop. 39 process every year, LASD and BCS worked to negotiate a multi-year, long term agreement in 2014 to provide stability and set aside costly lawsuits. The 5 year agreement capped the charter school's in-district enrollment to 900 students and collaboratively allocated facilities, avoiding the Prop. 39 process. Both BCS and LASD thrived under the agreement and student achievement continued to soar. With peace over facilities negotiations, our schools have been able to focus on student achievement instead of litigation. The 5 year agreement ended on June 30, 2019.

Before the 5 year agreement expired, two members of the LASD Board and three BCS Board members met in mediation to work out a subsequent long term facilities agreement and avoid the contentious Prop. 39 process. BCS submitted a Prop. 39 request asking for exclusive use of the Egan Junior High School campus beginning in the 2019-20 school year and unilaterally increasing its enrollment by 220 students.

After considerable public deliberation, LASD responded to the Prop. 39 request by offering to add shared facilities for BCS at a third campus, Loyola Elementary School, to house the projected increase in BCS student enrollment. BCS subsequently submitted a response rejecting the three-campus split. In parallel, the two parties resumed mediation discussions to discuss a long term facilities plan.

The mediation team then negotiated a proposed 10 year agreement to bring forward for community review, discussion and input. Over nearly a month of Board meetings and school site forums, the LASD Board received hundreds of concerns regarding the proposed 10 year agreement and determined that the community required more time and input in order to finalize a long term agreement with BCS. The LASD Board proposed a 2 Year Interim Facilities Agreement with BCS to allow time for a community engagement process to achieve a longer term facilities agreement with the charter school. Both sides finalized this 2 year agreement in May 2019.

The 2 Year Interim Facilities Agreement houses BCS at its current shared locations on the Egan and Blach campuses, capping BCS enrollment at 1,111 students. At both schools, BCS will remain in its current footprint. At Egan, BCS will add up to 12 portable classrooms in its current area to accommodate increased enrollment. BCS will have some shared access to the Multi Purpose Room and PE facilities under an agreed upon schedule, similar to that at Blach. To mitigate any increase in traffic, the agreement notes that BCS will work with LASD and the City of Los Altos. At Blach, BCS will use two additional classrooms that are currently not in use at Blach. The facilities sharing plan and spaces will remain the same.

To continue peace in our community and the focus on our students’ success, BCS and LASD began a process called mediation in late 2017 in an effort to achieve a new long term agreement for facilities. Two members of the LASD Board and three from the BCS Board met over the course of over 1 year and a half to agree on a proposal to bring to their full Boards and the community for review and input.

The terms of the proposed agreement are below:

• By no sooner than 2023, BCS would have exclusive use of 16 of the 18.83 acres that comprise the Egan Junior High Campus.
  • LASD would preserve 2.83 acres of the Egan campus for affordable teacher housing.
• BCS would cap its enrollment at 1,111 students, roughly equivalent to its projected enrollment for the 2019-20 school year.
• After the construction of a new junior high school facility on LASD's new 10th site, slotted to be finished no sooner than Fall 2023, the current Egan Junior High would be relocated to the new site. LASD has entered an agreement to purchase the site.
• While the new junior high is being constructed, BCS would stay at its current locations at Egan and Blach, with no expansion to other LASD campuses.
• The proposed agreement would be in place for at least 10 years ending the divisive, costly and rigid Prop. 39 process.

After hundreds of community comments received in LASD Board meetings, school site forums and emails, the LASD Board opted to pursue a 2 Year Interim Facilities Agreement to provide more time for community feedback on a long term facilities plan to house BCS.

BCS officially announced plans to grow to at least 1,200 students over the next three years in November 2018. It projected enrollment of over 1,100 students for the upcoming 2019-20 school year. If the school continued to grow, under the rigid Prop. 39 law LASD would be required to provide more and more classroom space for the charter’s in district students. An enrollment cap is critical to LASD’s ability to provide stability in facilities allocation and to allow all of our schools and students to thrive.

As the 5 year agreement was coming to a close, BCS commenced the Prop. 39 process in the midst of negotiations with LASD for a long term agreement. In its Prop. 39 request for 2019-20, BCS unilaterally decided to enroll 220 additional students, requiring more local classrooms for the upcoming school year. Due to current California charter law, the district has no power to compel BCS to cap its enrollment, except in a negotiated agreement. Capping BCS's enrollment into the future will bring facilities stability, protect our academic programs and the long term fiscal health of our neighborhood schools.

During the 2019 negotiations for a long term agreement, BCS announced that it would grow by an additional 220 students in the 2019-20 school year, forcing the district to find space immediately for the upcoming 2019-20 school year due to California law that regulates public charter school facilities. At that time the Board of Trustees made the very difficult decision to preliminarily offer BCS space at Loyola Elementary School while it continued to work through a mediation process to achieve an alternative long term agreement. However, under the finalized 2 Year Interim Facilities Agreement, BCS will remain at its two locations at Egan and Blach.

Since 2012, the district has been engaged in a community driven process to resolve our issue of 10 schools on 9 sites, as well as long term student enrollment growth. Time and again, our community consistently determined that a new 10th school site is the preferred approach to a long term facilities solution for all students. To that end, the school district placed bond Measure N on the ballot in 2014, which local voters passed. As part of the negotiated 5 year agreement between BCS and LASD, the charter and school district together supported the Measure N to obtain a 10th site to solve the issue of the ongoing problem of housing 10 schools on 9 sites. The district has now entered into a Purchase Agreement to acquire a new school site thanks to a unique collaboration with the City of Mountain View. The City of Mountain View and local developers will provide over $127 million in funding towards the purchase, making the new site extremely cost-effective. For more information about the community process to acquire a new school site, please click here.