Low Enrollment Public Schools in South Bay

I have heard from a few friends that in some good public schools areas like Cupertino, Palo Alto , Mountain View the enrollment is going down as families with younger kids are not able to afford in these neighborhoods and older people are not moving out . The concern is with less kids they get less funding and not able to function as well.
I would like to know if you guys have any idea how serious this concern is ?
Lets try to resist temptation to make this topic political :slight_smile:

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Which school has this issue? We can advertise so that people can apply for inter district transfer.

Good schools will have no worries. The bad schools with low enrollment could be closed

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It was a very generic information I heard with no specifics about schools. I’am looking to get confirmation or disconfirmation . I agree that good schools might not get impacted as much . For instance I heard Cupertino High had less enrollment so they have added more lottery seats .

Cupertino High area has been one of the fastest growing area. However, Lynbrook High has seen a decreasing enrollment. Lynbrook has a lottery system to take applicants from other schools from the same district.

This was discussed before… enrollment in elementary schools are declining… might plan to close elementary schools.

About to throw color to Lynbrook and Cupertino High, John beats me to it. Amazing how news can get distorted and reached Buyer_SV’s ears differently. This declining enrollment news was published on Mercury News.

This could be a bad sign for Cupertino. Maybe the price is too high and priced out some young parents. Amen the existing residents are overly attached to their homes and turnover is too low.

On the other hand, which school district is facing an increasing enrollment and overcrowded classes?

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Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Houses around the best schools tend to be the least affordable to younger families.

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Also, they rent out their houses instead of selling when they moved elsewhere, making it hard for landlord like me, rental hardly changed for two years… too many competition. However, prices are held steady because of Apple, Nimbyism and Prop 13.

The biggest issue is California requires all schools to have specific administrative positions regardless of school size. It makes small schools impossible due to high administrative costs as a percent of total budget. You can thank the state for “helping” you.

It’s the operating costs that are covered by revenue per student. Less students, means you should have lower operating costs too. If you had 3,000 students and 30 students a class that’s 100 teachers. If you decrease to 2,400 students, then you have 80 teachers. The costs should decrease proportionally with lower enrollment. The issue is you have the same number of administrators which blows the budget.

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Interesting that school enrollment issues are happening in all areas, good or bad (perceived). You mean, you can’t just (first of all) find the money and beat out everyone to get the “dream” house, pop out babies and then not worry for the next 17 years of each child???

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Small side topic → Same issue with Fremont water rate increase. It seems they can’t reduce operating costs when revenues are down. Crazy.

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You can’t stay away from politics. The new administration just hired DeVos, a lady who hates public schools and loves opening charters, with the subsequent voucher program.

Good thing about Charter schools? They don’t discriminate you by income nor location. First come, first served.

There’s going to be disruption at all levels. How bad? How Good? History will tell.

Well, we could just tell the people of Detroit to keep attending the public schools. I mean a majority of adults there are illiterate. Why should we change anything about the schools? Isn’t 40-some percent of people able to read good enough?

Well the owner of the thread wants this to be politics free. Let’s all make it happen. :muscle:

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I was just informed that Lynbrook got enough new students for 2017-18 as a result of new lottery system.
In recent years, Cupertino high has over capacity issue (as a result of recent addition of high rise buildings) and Lynbrook has under capacity issue. Thus, with new enrollment system, good number of kids from Cupertino High (and some other High schools in FUHSD) are coming to Lynbrook and two schools should be well balanced.
Moving forward, I don’t know. FUHSD kept on saying that decreasing enrollment is an issue across all schools but I don’t see clear sign of these. In my younger one’s school(elementary), I am seeing number of classes are increasing not decreasing.

The number of students of Lynbrook was around 1500 many years ago and school performed just fine at that time as well.
Now, district is trying to keep max capacity of 1800 all the time even taking the risk of over capacity.
I understand that is important from teacher/district perspective for their job security, but am not sure that is super critical from student/parents perspective.

BTW, I doubt that inter-district transfer (especially from bad school district to good school district) would happen.
Even rezoning among schools within the same district triggers big turmoil.

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I don’t think parents who paid 2m for a house want any freeloaders who only paid 1m. :smile:

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My Fremont tenants again this year asked that I write a letter/fill out paperwork confirming that they are my tenants at that address. I kidded my tenant that if she wants this confirmation process to stop, stop having kids. She said, yeah, too many people are lying about where they live apparently to just get lil johnny into the schools. Could be worse…

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Thanks Jane. This was very informative.

What I understand is there are some enhancement courses which they have to close down if the enrollment is too low.

RWC public schools “lost” 1800 students for 2 reasons:
1-Some of them moved out of area
2-More kids going to charter schools

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