School board trustees are focusing on the financial implications
of taking on a project that would double the number of schools in
the district.
Morgan Hill – School board trustees are focusing on the financial implications of taking on a project that would double the number of schools in the district.
The most important question was if the district can afford to be involved in the project that will eventually be home to 50,000 people or will abandoning the development bankrupt the district?
If, as trustees Amina Khemici and Julia Hover-Smoot are proposing, the district petitions to get rid of the Coyote Valley portion of the district, then the district will lose the Average Daily Attendance funding from the students in that portion of the district. ADA funding is worth about $5,000 per student.
The area is currently home to 900 students in the district – 300 from Martin Murphy Middle School and 600 at Los Paseos Elementary schools. Losing the funding for those students would cost the district approximately $4.5 million. The general fund budget for the 2005-2006 school year is $57 million.
The Charter School is also located in south San Jose on Monterey Highway in the former Encinal Elementary School near the intersection of Bailey Avenue. The district does not receive any ADA from Charter School students.
Some of the students at Martin Murphy are bused from Morgan Hill and would have to be placed at Britton Middle School if the district got rid of that portion of the district. The ADA from those students would not be lost. All of the Los Paseos students would remain in the Coyote area.
According to Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini, who heads the business services department, she has been requested by Superintendent Alan Nishino to put together detailed information about the costs to run these schools – electricity, water, teacher salaries and staff salaries.
“It would probably take us a week or more to compile the complete information, and Dr. Nishino wanted to give us a chance to begin working on this,” Tognazzini said Monday. “This is something that they’ll be looking at in the future.”
One thing Tognazzini said the district does know now that wasn’t clear during the discussion on Sept. 12 is that the position of the board, either for keeping or for getting rid of Coyote Valley, makes little difference.
“The community can have an election, but if they do so, the results will only be taken as advisory. It must be Coyote Valley; they must be the ones to petition,” she said.
