Demographics continue to shift in the Pleasanton school district. Trustees received the annual enrollment update that showed a decline in the elementary school population, but also showed how remarkably stable enrollment has been over the past five years.
Current enrollment is 14,768 compared to 2011 when it was 14,873. The high point was 14,918.
The dramatic shift in the ethnic make-up of the student population has continued. Five years ago, Asian students made up 30 percent of enrollment—now it is 40.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of white students has fallen from 53 percent to 44 percent. The percentage of Hispanic students remained stable at about 10 percent.
Speaking of education, the Livermore school district is demonstrating how nimble its leadership is by re-opening a satellite elementary school campus to accommodate a flood of students abandoning the Livermore Valley Charter School. The charter school’s corporation has filed for bankruptcy because it owes $3 million.
As the organization has struggled to cut costs and made some questionable leadership decisions, parents pulled their children out in droves. Earlier this month, the district re-opened the elementary campus to accommodate 300 students, the vast majority of which previously attended the charter school.
That meant hiring 10 teachers plus reassigning district office employee Scott Vernoy to serve as principal at the site that previously was Portola school.
Given the ongoing financial issues and both the county superintendent’s office and the Livermore school district identifying current shortcomings by the charter organization, more students could be on the way.
There’s something wrong with the order of this:
1. Black Friday
2. Small Business Saturday
3. Cyber Monday
4. Giving Tuesday
From my perspective, let’s start with giving generously on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Then dig out the credit cards for the malls and the online shopping.
Incidentally, maybe the Black Friday mania is fading most places. There were plenty of parking spots available last Friday at many malls, the notable exception being the San Francisco Premium Outlets where all of the roads around it were jammed.
That made it a particularly challenging day for Moore’s Christmas tree farm that relocated there from the Stanley Boulevard location of 2015 (it had been on the fairgrounds for years). People could not get close the tree lot because of the jammed streets from the outlets.