Help Us Stop Bullis Charter School

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Please Help Save Our Public Schools

Heard enough? Want to join the fight to save our local public schools? There are many things you can do.

Contribute Your Words

If you are a threatened LASD parent under attack by Bullis Charter or a concerned parent anywhere in the USA who wishes to stop the scourge of Boutique Charter Schools, send us a quick message.

Help Our District In the Fight

Our local school district is currently doing everything they can to keep our schools open. Although they are limited in what they can do (for instance, they cannot engage in the sort of marketing, PR, etc. that Bullis Charter School can engage in), they are doing their best.

Get the Word Out

Almost nobody in our community understands what is going on here. If they did, there would be outrage. BCS has thus far absolutely dominated the public relations campaign with their high-paid lawyers and PR firms. It's like the local PTA going up against Microsoft (or Intel, as it were). Also, encourage as many web sites as you can to link to this site. Using printed materials you can help promote this site, too!

So our primary first step is information: we need to get the word out. Understand the issues, learn the background, learn how to deal with Bullis Charter's confusing FUD and spin, and then tell everybody you can. Tell them about the issues, and tell them about our site.

The first reaction you will usually get is disbelief. Most people cannot imagine that such a thing could happen in our community. It helps people to understand when they see the motives behind this crime. Tell them about the background, tell them the story of how we got here.

You should also write letters to the editors of every paper you read. Remember, every Bullis Charter parent is "drafted" into Bullis Charter's army of letter writers. They have always been extremely organized. We need to be organized, too. We heard a rumor that when there's a negative news story about BCS, a communication goes out to BCS parents who are instructed to weigh in and bombard editors with hate mail. The only way to counter this is directly responding and having our voice heard.

Stay Informed

Stay on top of what is happening in our local schools. For years--decades perhaps--most parents didn't have to worry about "politics" in order to secure a consistent education for their children. With the laws currently on the books, we have no choice but to be on top of the situation.

Advocate a Solution for Bullis Charter School

The founders of Bullis Charter School made a mess in our community. There is no easy solution to clean it up.

The solution to this mess may take on many forms, depending on whether we get help from the Bullis Charter founders (i.e. in the form of donations), and/or whether we get cooperation from Bullis Charter management.

The first priority in fixing this problem should be our existing free public schools. We cannot compromise their operation.

The next priority should be securing the best educational experience possible for current Bullis Charter students. There are probably many solutions which can be reached in the context of the long-term problem being solved.

Examples of viable, acceptable long-term solutions to the Bullis Charter situation may be one of the following:

The Founders taking the school completely private. This would allow the school to function as an ordinary private school.
The Founders buying (or long-term leasing) the school a campus. This would eliminate the school's primary threat to our schools.
The school closing "incrementally" by no longer accepting new students. This will gradually eliminate the problem one year at a time, reducing the school's "footprint" by one class per year.

Remember, the current students and parents of Bullis Charter are also victims here! Most of them probably no idea they were pawns in some rich people's revenge plot. We need to work to take care of everybody as best we can.

Let the Santa Clara County Board of Education Know How You Feel

Bullis Charter founders and supporters have been very organized and have thus far been virtually the only voice members of the SCCBoE have ever heard from. The last major decision by the board--to renew the Charter--was apparently decided upon because of an online poll only known to Bullis Charter Supporters. A total of 789 votes (out of a population of about 50,000 in our district) caused our Education Board members to be fooled into thinking that the Bullis Charter cause was legitimate and popular. Most public school parents have never heard of them or this issue.

Because of this, it is important to let them know how you feel about a certain boutique charter school that is intent on closing your district's schools to make way for themselves. Here are their names and email addresses:

Leon Beauchman: leon_beauchman@sccoe.org (member page)
Michael Chang: michael_chang@sccoe.org (member page)
Joseph Di Salvo: josephsds1@aol.com (member page)
Julia Hover-Smoot: julia_hover-smoot@sccoe.org (member page)
Grace H. Mah: grace_mah@sccoe.org (member page)
Craig Mann: craig_mann@sccoe.org (member page)
Anna Song: anna_song@sccoe.org (member page)

Advocate the Reining In of Boutique Charter Schools

If the system is left in its "broken" state, this terrible problem may occur again here in Los Altos and Hills, and in many other communities across California.

Boutique Charter Schools are an interpretation of the Charter laws which the voters of California never intended. Charters were approved by Californians to create a solution for difficult areas (whether or not you agree if this was the right solution is beside the point). The Charter laws were never meant to allow rich people to displace top schools with their own experiements.

Most specifically, we advocate the addition of the following rule into the Charter Laws (this is just an illustration--we'll leave it to the real lawyers to figure out exactly how to do this):

Section N.N. The Charter shall maintain standardized test scores of 15% or higher than that of surrounding schools.

This rule alone (as near as we can tell so far) should rein in Boutique Charter Schools and ensure that the laws are used the way voters intended. In short, unless the given Charter School is adding significant, objective value to the district, it has no business taking taxpayer money or resources. Public money should not be used on "experiments in education". That's what private schools--which could be funded by willing donors--are for.