Monday, January 7, 2008
5:00 p.m.
District Office, Board Room
4665 Bernal Avenue
Should student enrollment at Pleasanton’s high school campuses continue to increase indefinitely?
Amador student enrollment is 2587, by California Department of Education standards this exceeds a “Very Large High School”. Amador is 153% of capacity on 39 acres of land.
Foothill student enrollment is 2343, also defined as a “Very Large High School” at 125% of capacity on 43 acres.
The California Department of Education (CDE) does not support large high schools. Research locally and nationally is overwhelmingly in favor of moving away from the larger schools. It clearly shows the social, developmental, academic, and financial value in doing so. The CDE has made new pots of money available to implement small schools. The Pleasanton school district believes our community is supportive of the very large schools and believes our high schools can increase to 2700 students. They have therefore been ignoring the grant money offered by the state and not pursuing options. PUSD’s current plan is to identify more students to go to Village HS to take some of the burden off the large campuses.
We may have an opportunity to create a small career tech school, Energy and Utilities or Engineering and Design Industry are two possibilities. Reducing enrollments by 500 students per campus would not limit the ability to offer the breadth of programs now offered. We have not reached peak enrollment and we can show there is no bubble to give relief anytime soon.
This topic will be discussed at the School Board meeting, Monday Jan. 7th 5:00.
We have a great community with great families and kids; our schools are very good but we could be better.
Let your School Board know if you are concerned about High School enrollments.
Board President Jim Ott jott@unclecu.org; Clerk Chris Grant ChrisMGrant@gmail.com;
Steve Brozosky steve@brozosky.com; Kris Weaver kgweav@comcast.net; Pat Kernan patkernan@comcast.net
Decade of opportunities squandered
Web Link
"we are reminded that this board didn't want maximum capacity at the high schools," Weaver said.
Web Link
Career Technical Education
Web Link
An overview of the State School Facility Programs
Web Link