What To Expect At Monday Night's Los Altos School Board Meeting

The Los Altos School Board is scheduled to vote Monday night on a $750,000 agreement for teacher concessions and on the 2011-2012 budget, during a meeting that is brimming with budget matters in a challenging year.

The 7 p.m. meeting will be dominated by discussion of key components of the school district budget still in play. Items on the agenda include:

1. Presentation and public hearing on the proposed 2011-2012 budget
2. Vote on the proposed 2011-2012 budget
3. Vote on the tentative agreement with the Los Altos Teachers Association (LATA)
4. Discussion of restoration of programs cut from the budget, based on proposed grant money from the Los Altos Educational Foundation (LAEF) and the teachers concessions.
5. Vote on proposed eliminating of last day on the 2011-2012 school calendar because of an agreed-upon furlough.
6. Vote on a resolution allowing the superintendent the flexibility to hire employees with emergency permits
7. Discuss transfer regulations between Palo Altos School District and LASD

The 2011-2012 budget is not currently available online, but a presentation will be made by Assistant Superintendent Randall Kenyon Monday night for the public hearing. After Monday's meeting the budget is expected to be on the district's website.

By law, school districts must submit a balanced budget to the county and the state by June 30. However, in the last several years of budget woes in Sacramento—combined with the state legislature itself rarely passing a budget by June 30—the budget that LASD board passes by that deadline is, in effect, a snapshot. Several  components have been in play over the past several months and some will continue to be before the 2011-2012 school year can be settled.

Now that some of those components — and the $193 passed—the district can take a step back and examine which can be restored or kept. 

But don't expect schools to be the same next year, said Joe Seither, co-president of the LAEF, which raises key funds to support school programs.

Even if the LAEF grant, to be proposed during the meeting, remains the same at $2.35 million, some cuts will still be made, according to Seither. 

“Even with the concessions the district announced, we’re not back to the same level of programs we had last year, still,” said Seither.

A pdf format copy of the agenda is above and to the right. The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. in the Board Room at 201 Covington Rd., Los Altos.