zone-California 7

Since the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD) has faced several controversial issues, attracting significant media attention. You can find some media reports here, here and the story here.

Long Jiao mentioned adoption of BP 6144 at the Board Meeting on September 26, 2024, a request also made by a group of CUSD parents at CurriculumIntegrity.org. Board members Jerry Liu, Phyllis Vogal, Sylvia Leong, and Satheeth Madhathil requested to add BP 6144 to future agenda items during the September 24, 2024, board meeting.

BP 6144 appeared in the Board Advance on October 17, 2024, and will be revisited in the future.

BP 6144 is a board policy regarding instructions related to controversial issues.

Some of the guidelines for instructions related to controversial issues are:

• The topic shall be age-appropriate.
• Instruction shall be presented in a balanced manner without bias and without promoting any particular point of view.
• In the classroom, teachers act on behalf of the District and are expected to follow the adopted curriculum, meaning they have limited freedom of speech in the classroom.
• Students have the freedom of speech without jeopardizing their grades or being subject to discrimination, retaliation, or discipline.

Below are the full list of guidelines.

A group of CUSD parents supported BP 6144. And some members of the Cupertino Educators Association (CEA), or the Teachers' Union, opposed it.

BP 6144 has been adopted by numerous California school districts, including the Fremont Union High School District, which encompasses the entire CUSD area.

During the board meeting on 10/14/2021, CUSD Board voted (with 3:2 simple majority) to close Meryerholz and Regnart Elementary Schools. This decision had profound consequences to the community.

But this is not the end of it. According to the Board Meeting on 9/23/2021, the district might evaluate another possible school closure in FY2025-26.

It's important to revisit what happened in 2021 to understand the process and the reason leading to the schools' closure, as well as what can be improved.

The Timeline

• CUSD failed to pass parcel tax Measure O in March 2020.

• CUSD created a Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) in the Spring of 2020 to consider options for school closures and consolidations.

• The CAC presented the final report on 10/22/2020 after five meetings.

• In November 2020, right after the election, the community was informed about possible school closures.

• CUSD failed to pass another parcel tax Measure A in May 2021. According to [the report]
  (https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/cusdk8/Board.nsf/files/C78SEY0492B6/$file/Cupertino Union School District - Final Report.pdf), "The Parcel Tax revenue would allow the district to delay the decision of closing schools."

• The district resumed school closure process after the failure of Measure A.

• The board voted 3:2 to close Meyerholz and Regnart at the Board Meeting at 10/14/2021.

The Reason

The district mentioned two reasons for school closures:

• Declining enrollment
• State funding affecting the district budget

The district expected the enrollment to continue to drop.

The district expected the budget to be in a deficit for many years.

Several years have passed, and I collected the actual data and compared with the prediction below. The enrollment prediction was relatively accurate, but the financial predictions were way off.

Notably, the budget in FY 2023-24 is in a deficit again even though the actual revenue is $42M more than the predicted revenue and $34M more than the predicted expense.

One of the reasons for school closures was to reduce the expense, but the expense was not affected by the school closures at all.

Enrollment Rules
The district proposed two enrollment rules during the school closures in 2021.

• Each elementary school should be staffed with at least two Kindergarten classes.
  
• Each middle school should be more than 700 students. (see above)

According to publicschoolreview.com, average school size in California is 588 students.

What Can Be Better?

Since the CUSD school closures in 2021, possible future school closures have become nightmares among local residents, such as the dispute related to the FUHSD Trustee Area transition.

To restore residents' confidence to the district, I think there are at least two things the district can improve on

• Critical district issues (like school closures, reconfiguration, selling school sites, etc,) should require super-majority (or 4 out of 5) votes from the board.
• If schools are going to be closed due to low enrollment, they need to have opportunity of open enrollment programs across the district.

Note

Someone asked for the voting record for the school closures. You can find the information from the record for the 10/14/2021 board meeting at Agenda - Cupertino Union School District BoardDocs Plus. They don't have a direct link and you have to manually find the meeting on that day. It was agenda item 13.1. Below is a screenshot.

Please notice Sylvia Leong and Phyllis Vogel's current term end at the end of 2024. Sylvia is seeking for re-election while Phyllis hasn't pulled any paper yet (up to 7/25/2024).

At the Board meeting on 4/25/2024, the Board discussed the plan to relocate the District Administrative Office from its current location at S. Mary Avenue, Sunnyvale to the Meyerholz campus. which was closed by the district in 2021.

The district plans to use Certificates of Participation (COP) debt to finance the new office building. Unlike bonds, which need to be approved by voters, COP comes from the district's operating budget and doesn't need voter approval. The district is currently in a budget deficit.

Since CUSD is renting its current Administrative Office, after moving into the new office, the district needs to pay the COP, but not the current rent. The current rent is about $471K per year. The COP payment would be about $686K per year, an increase of about $215K per year. I assume the district would pay both current rent and the COP while the new office building is in construction. But the district needs to pay neither after COP is paid off (30 years later).

This district is planning to convert Meyerholz Elementary School to new district office, but is this the best location? I assume once Meyerholz is converted to district office, it wouldn't be suitable to be a school anymore. Should we keep Meyerholz as a potential school site and build the new district office somewhere else?

Southwest corner of Lawson Middle School could be a good alternative place. The corner is currently occupied by a lot of school buses and other district facilities. It looks like below.

The Finch site is a 1.5 acres empty lot next to Sedgwich Elementary School. It should be a suitable alternative site if it's large enough.

CUSD Board discussed a potential bond measure at the 4/25/2024 Board meeting. The list of projects can be found here.

Why bonds?

As you can see in CUSD FY2023-24 Budget, CUSD budget were spent on

• Employee Salaries and Benefits (83%)
• Books and Supplies (7%)
• Services and Operating Expenditures (9%)
• Misc expenses

Only part of "Services and Operating Expenditures" can be used for facility repairs and improvements. But that's not enough. CUSD depends on bonds for facility repairs and improvements as a "tradition".

What are current bonds?

You can find all CUSD bonds on EMMA.

Residents are currently paying two CUSD bonds right now (you can check at Santa Clara County Tax Allocation).

The 2001 bond should be paid off in 2027.
The 2012 bond (Measure H) ran out of money in FY2022-23, but will be paid off around 2040.

What's the difference between bonds and parcel taxes?

Please see this article for more information.

How bonds work?

According to Bond measure at the 4/25/2024 Board meeting,

• The district raises the money (bond) in three series
• The residents pay back the bond based on assessed property value in about 30 years (probably faster since the assessed property value should increase)
• The district uses the bond money on projects (normally last shorter than payback time, previous 2001 and 2012 bonds lasted around 10 years each)

The Official Bond Measure:
On 06/13/2024, the board voted to put modified tax rate extension on November ballot. The total bond amount is $347M. The tax rate looks like below with longer term and lower average tax rate.

The project list for the bond is mostly generic with emphasis on new classrooms, labs for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM). The keywords for the usage are "repair", "modernize", "renovate", "upgrade", "expand", "construct", etc. Below are the full list.

If passed, the bond will have an oversight committee and report the usage every year.

Scenarios for new bonds (obsolete)

The district proposed three scenarios. Below are the screenshots where you can see residents' burden and the bond amount.

Please notice the tax rate is per $100,000 assessed value (not market value). If you property is assessed to be $2M, your burden for this bond will be 20 times the proposed tax rate per year.

Tax rate: $30 per $100,000 assessed value, total bond value: $444M.

Tax rate: $24 per $100,000 assessed value, total bond value: $350M.

Tax rate extension. Total bond value: $306M.

CUSD is about to transition from LCFF (Local Control Funding Formula) to Basic Aid in 2024-25.

California K-12 public schools have two funding models: LCFF and Basic Aid, with California setting an entitlement per ADA (Average Daily Attendance). If the school district revenue from property taxes and other sources is less than the entitlement, the district will be funded by LCFF via state funds. Otherwise, the school district will be funded by Basic Aid via property taxes.

If school district is funded by LCFF, the total revenue will be related to enrollment. The more enrollment (ADA) there is, the more revenue the district receives. If the school district is funded by Basic Aid, its total revenue will be based on the total amount of local property tax, and not related to enrollment anymore.

From Santa Clara County Tax Allocation, CUSD should receive 24.75% of the property tax (FUHSD receives 16.71% of the property tax). The total property tax rate is about 1% of accessed value.

CUSD also has two active bonds which are at 0.0357% in total. For $100K accessed value, CUSD should receive $247.50 from the 1% property tax plus $35.70 from active bonds. As a comparison, FUHSD receives $167.10 from the 1% property tax plus $44.10 from bonds.

From CUSD 2023-24 budget, the revenue for CUSD is $207M in FY 2023-24, a 12% (or $28M) decrease compared to that in FY 2022-23 due to reduction in Federal, State (other than LCFF) and local revenues. But the total expenditures are $223M. So CUSD has a $16M deficit in FY 2023-24.

Within the $223M expenditures, about $185M are for employee (teachers and administration positions) salaries and benefits.

Compared to FY 2022-23, the enrollment in FY 2023-24 decreased 1.5% (from about 13,700 to about 13,500).

But the total budgeted FTE (Full Time Employee) in FY 2023-24 is 1502.540, an increase of 53.491 (3.7%) compared to FY 2022-23 (1438.174).

Budget for FY 2024-25

CUSD passed a stunning budget for FY 2024-25 with more than $33M deficit. The expense is more than 10% compared to previous year. Below is a summary of the budget.

Cupertino City staff proposed new Capital Improvement Programs for FY 2024-25 at 3/19/2024 Council Meeting. Six (6) new projects were proposed with total cost about $19.5M.

At the same time, there are seventeen (17) existing projects with remaining funds more than $25.8M, 6 nearly completed projects, and 5 completed projects. See here for a complete list.

Because Cupertino is in a budget crisis right now, the city's capital reserve is expected to drain out in two years.

Weeks later, city staff proposed City Work Program (CWP) for FY 2024-25 at 4/3/2024 Council Meeting.

Comparing with proposed CWP staff proposed one year ago (4/4/2023), the new proposed CWP staff proposed on 4/3/2024 has a noticeable change: the new CWP didn't include any budget information. Some of the CWPs appeared in the 2023 CWP list which contains budget information. But there are some new CWPs (like "Speed Limit Lowing") totally missing budget information.

The list of new CIPs can be found here. Below are the screenshots for each of them.

Which CIP do you support?

Bollinger Road is the boundary between Cupertino and San Jose.

In July 2021 (during Covid-19 pandemic), the City of Cupertino generated Bollinger Road Corridor Safety Study. The report provided many safety suggestions and two alternatives.

• Alternative A includes a lane reduction on Bollinger Road, from two travel lanes in each direction to one travel lane in each direction and a two-way left-turn lane.
• Alternative B maintains the existing lane configuration of two travel lanes in each direction.

You can also see related information here.

San Jose Spotlight reported on 01/22/2024 that the project is set to start this (2024) summer.

Cupertino received external funding for this project. Cupertino needs to pay 20% of the cost for design.

This project appeared as Low priority item on 03/19/2024 City Council study session.

According to Bollinger Road Corridor Safety Study, the total cost for Alternative A is $11.7M, and the total cost for Alternative B is $10.5M in 2021. The project will be a five-year project. And total cost for Cupertino is estimated to be $4M.

During the public comment time, residents were split into two groups with one group supported Alternative A (lane reduction), while another group supported Alternative B (maintain lanes). Which alternative do you support?

Below are more details about Bollinger Road Corridor Safety Study.

The study is a safety study with goals to "identify improvements to create a safer and more accessible corridor". According to the report, seems all the collisions happened at intersections.

The study performed two surveys in March 2021 and May 2021, respectively. The March survey received 247 responses. While the survey in May had 139 unique users "VIEW" the maps. The report didn't mention how many responses received for the survey in May. The survey in May was about the two alternatives of reducing lanes and maintaining current lanes. Some residents reported they were aware of the survey in March, but they were not aware of the survey in May.

The results for the survey in March 2021 were:

The results for the survey in May 2021 were:

California cities are expected to update their Housing Element every eight years. The Housing Element serves as the local government's blueprint for how the city will grow and develop.

The Housing Element must be approved by HCD (California Department of Housing and Community Development). HCD adopted RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) in 2021. HCD uses the RHNA methodology to specify housing allocation goals. The allocation numbers that Cupertino and other cities must now meet are generally much higher than previous cycles. An audit by the California State Auditor has outlined several weaknesses in the RHNA methodology. Here is a good article regarding the controversy regarding this issue.

California also passed many laws recently to encourage housing. Those new laws and HCD's high RHNA allocations changed cities' Housing Element dramatically. Cupertino has no exception. Cupertino's RHNA allocation is 4,588 new units from 2023 to 2031.

Cupertino has its third draft of Housing Element. To achieve the RHNA allocation, Cupertino rezoned many sites and setup many ways to increase density.

One interesting part of the Housing Element is HE-1.3.6 (page H-17 of the Housing Element third draft). The first bullet says "Allowing corner lots in R1 zoning districts to develop as multi-family rental housing using R3 zoning regulations to encourage missing-middle developments." R1 means single family house. R2 means duplex. R3 is not triplex, but multi-family housing. All apartments in Cupertino so far are R3. This means all the corner lots can become apartments without additional parking requirements.

The second bullet says "Allowing lots zoned for single-family residential uses that abut (either shares a property line or is directly across the street from) property that fronts an arterial or major collector, and is zoned and used for commercial or mixed-use development, to develop with rental multi-family housing using R3 zoning regulations to encourage missing middle housing. "

This means properties located behind or around a shopping center can become apartments. Probably many people live there didn't realize they are impacted.

Arterials:

• Homestead Rd
• Stevens Creek Blvd
• De Anza Blvd
• Wolfe Rd

Major collectors:

• N. Tantau
• Miller Ave
• N. Stelling
• Bubb Rd
• N. Foothill Expressway

Below is an incomplete list of impacted streets:

• Near Homestead
  ** Shady Oak Ln
  ** Firethorn Dr
• Near Stevens Creek Blvd
  ** Norwich Ave - all of east side
  ** Amherst Dr-east end
  ** Denison Ave-south end
  ** Wheaton Dr-all of south side
  ** Stern Ave-north end
  ** Bret Ave-north end
  ** Judy Ave-north end
  ** S Tantau Ave-north end
  ** E. Estates Dr-north end
  ** Richwood Dr-north end
  ** Bixby Dr-all of north side
  ** Brenda Ct-north and east end
  ** Mello Place-north end
  ** Deeprose Pl-north end (possibly)
  ** Randy Lane-south end close to Stevens Creek Blvd
  ** Miner Place-north end, south end
  ** Partlett Place-north end, south end and by Donut Wheel
  ** Scofield Dr – all of it
  ** Alves Dr-between Sachi Way and Stelling
  ** Peninsula Ave-south end
  ** Santa Clara Ave-south end
  ** Adrian Ave-south end
  ** Eaton Place-east end
  ** Ramona Ct-north end
  ** Northeast side of Stevens Creek Blvd near N. Foothill Expressway
  ** Cupertino Rd-west end
• De Anza Blvd
  ** Sunrise Dr-east end (possibly)
  ** Rodrigues Ave-behind XLB Kitchen shopping center
  ** Terry Way-east side
  ** Paradise Dr-east side
  ** McClellan Rd-northeast and southeast end
  ** Felton Way-east side
  ** Blossom Ln-east end
  ** Kirwin Ln-east end
  ** Westlynn Way- east side (possibly)
  ** Jamestown Dr-east side
  ** Clifden Way – west end
  ** Clay St – west end
  ** Silverado Ave – west end
• Bollinger
  ** Clifden Way-west side
  ** La Roda Dr-south end
  ** S Blaney Ave-southwest end

Don’t make me wrong. I like the idea of Democracy. But I don’t like our current practices of Democracy.

Our current practice is the Trustee Model of Representation. Voters vote for a candidate based on the belief that the candidate will represent them properly. Once elected, the representative works on their own for two, four or six years based on the length of the term. But voters basically lose control of their representative.

This model fails in both theory and reality.

There are only four ways of spending money.

• You spend your own money on yourself. Our everyday life works on this model. Fortunately it is also the most efficient way of spending money — you always try to spend your own money in a way that serves you the best.
• You spend your own money on someone else. Thinking of giving gifts for a coworker’s baby shower. You tend to not care about the gift, with staying under the budget being your main concern.
• You spend someone else’s money on yourself. One legal case is that if you are on a business trip your company can compensate for meals. You tend to spend as close to the limit as possible.
• You spend someone else’s money on someone else. You tend to not care about how much you spend and how the money is spent. Unfortunately, our Government falls in this model.

The case is not only limited to money, but to everything, like natural resources and even the safety of the society. Even worse, most representatives are trying to convert some resources from Model 4 to Model 3, which is they can benefit from the resources they control for all the people. That’s why most people think their representatives are out of touch and even corrupted. Representatives who wholeheartedly work for the people are rare. You should cherish them if you are lucky enough to have some.

Is there any solution? Fortunately, the answer is yes. With the help of modern technology, we can convert representatives to the Delegate Model of Representation. In this way, people as a whole controls how to spend their own money on themselves. Suddenly we return to the model 1 of spending, which is also the most efficient way.

It will also be the first time to fulfill an American dream: the Government should be of the people, for the people and by the people.

@lookingaround Thank you for the comments.

My explanation for the law enforcement cost increase was that was the number the County Sheriff charges to Cupertino. I guess it's more costly to setup the in house police department at first, but the running cost should be lower than what the County Sheriff charges. But it's just a guess, I would love to see a research to compare the two options.

For sales tax, in a perfect world, each city should receive the sales tax from their residents. For each $100 on taxable spending, the city should receive $1 (the other $8 goes to the state, county, etc). Cupertino should receive only $60K per month or $720K per year if average resident spending is $100 per month. $9M sales tax is equivalent to $1250 non grocery spending per resident (not per household) per month. I don't know about other families, but my family should be much lower than this number. I think even $9M sales tax for Cupertino is still higher if we go to a fairer system.

My suggestions are not the most important things. Cupertino verified voters' voice is more important. I am glad my suggestion 1 and 2 made the top 2, which were also surpassed 55% of participated registered voters. I am quite glad with this results. The results were published here.