（Archived，September 2023)
Recently, voters in the FUHSD high school district (including Cupertino, Sunnyvale, West San Jose’s five high schools: Monta Vista, Lynbrook, Cupertino, Homestead and Fremont High) have received notice of a transition from At-Large Elections to By-Trustee Area Election. This means that starting in 2024, residents will be able to vote for only the board member in their designated Trustee Area. In the past, voters were able to elect all five FUHSD Board Members from within the entire district. The school district specifically explained that this change will not trigger boundary change of school attendence areas, and there is no need to worry about closing schools. But is it really that simple? In fact, as early as a few months ago, the current superintendent personally admitted that closing the school may be inevitable.
The reason why FUHSD suddenly suddenly proposed the change is due to the pressure from the North Sunnyvale community, led by SEE (Sunnyvale Equity in Education). In recent years, many California school districts have been threatened by CVRA lawsuits and have had to change to By-Trustee Area Elections. So far, no jurisdiction has successfully defended itself against CVRA lawsuits. At the FUHSD Board meeting on March 7th, 2023, the district officially initiated discussion on moving to By-Trustee Area Elections. At school district meetings before and after, there were tons of letters and public comments from the North Sunnyvale residents and Councilmembers complaining about the unfair distribution of the FUHSD resources.
At first glance, the school district map above seems unfair to North Sunnyvale. They occupy almost half of the school district, but the high schools are all in the south. The five school board members also live in the south. But once divided in the way proposed by North Sunnyvale, will the results really be fair?
The division method proposed by many people in the North Sunnyvale community seems to be roughly based on “even” distribution of area: a line cuts the FUHSD into two parts: North and South. The North is divided into two Trustee Areas, and the South is divided into three areas. It seems that South gets three votes. However, if you look at the current composition of the school board, the three school board members who were just elected last year, Naomi Nakano and Rosa Kim both live in south Sunnyvale, and Stanley Kou in east Cupertino, which is divided into the three southern parts № 3, 4, and 5.
Two FUHSD Board Trustee seats will be up for election in 2024. Currently, these seats are both occupied by Cupertino residents, Jeff Moe and Rod Sinks. However, unlike in previous At-Large elections, only two Trustee Areas will be able to vote in the next 2024 election. Will Cupertino Trustee Areas still have the opportunity to elect their candidates in the next election, or will FUHSD select predominantly Sunnyvale Trustee Areas to vote in 2024?
Currently, the voters in the southern part of the FUHSD are silent. Almost no one opposed the proposal raised by the North Sunnyvale community. Once their proposal is fully accepted, what impact will it have on our existing high schools? Many people are saying that there’s no need to worry. It is just about the Trustee voting area and will not affect other school district affairs. The school district has already sent letters to clarify this. However, if there really are no other consequences, why did our current superintendent personally admit that he would not rule out closing existing high schools in the future? Please refer to the following link
Moreover, there are many information channels behind the scenes that once the school district accepts By-Trustee Area Elections, it may have a negative impact on the location of our existing high schools:
(1) The “school closure theory” has real evidence and is by no means groundless. Due to declining enrollment in the past few years, HHS has been sending students to MVHS through open enrollment, while CHS has been sending students to LHS. Once the two high schools that send students from one to the other are grouped into the same Trustee Area, there will definitely be pressure to push for school merging. And by then, because school board members are elected based on Trustee Area, the number of school board members willing to vote against closing high schools will most likely be in the minority.
(2) There are two ways to decide the Trustee Area boundary map. The first is to listen to the public inputs and vote at the school board meeting. The second is to discuss it through a committee of community members organized by the school district, and they will give recommendations to board. Now, no matter which of the above methods is adopted, it may not benefit voters living in the southern part of the FUHSD. Other than the North Sunnyvale, the school district has received almost no “public opinions” from other area. No one in the southern part proposed its own pre-map proposal. Therefore, if the board listen to “the voice of residents”, the boundary map will definitely be beneficial to northern voters.
If we follow the second method and rely on committee recommendation. We can see several familiar names in the existing FUHSD CAC, such as Lori Cunninham, David Fung… who supported CUSD school closures in past years. Hung Wei, the mayor of the Cupertino City this year has not only been interviewed by the media many times to support the “justifiable” closure of Regnart Elementary School, but she has already endorsed Allison Joe, a community leader in North Sunnyvale, to run for FUHSD school board next year.
Based on the public track record of these officials and committee members, we should not expect a solution which could benefit our existing high school students and parents.
We must stop this threat by writing to the Board to propose a new Trustee Area boundary map, requiring each area to include an existing high school. Only in this way can we ensure the voice of voters in our five existing high schools to be heard.
(3) The two high schools currently facing the greatest danger of closing are the most famous two with the best performance and highest rankings: Lynbrook High (LHS) and Monta Vista High (MVHS). The danger of LHS is that it has the smallest current enrollment and is very close to CHS. If Cupertino and West San Jose voters continue to remain silent, the two high schools will surely be drawn into the same Trustee Area. In addition, there is no FUHSD Board Trustee living in the West San Jose area. It’s hard to expect any high-level officials to speak out to protect Lynbrook. Some have even proposed merging Cupertino High and Lynbrook High refering to the following map.
The danger of MVHS is that the two Cupertino school board members (Jeff Moe and Rod Sinks) up for re-election in 2024 may directly lose their qualifications if the Trustee Area boundary map favors the northern part of FUHSD. In other words, after the 2024 election, the MVHS district is likely to suddenly go from having two school board members to having no representative in high school board. If so, MVHS would be likely the first choice for sacrifice when the school district resources are re-distributed in the future.
Public high schools are a right of our district and its residents. We, the taxpayers, have supported over $1B in bond measures since 2008 to fund FUHSD renovations and operations. Via the FUHSD website, these include:
Measure G (2022) — $275 million school bond to continue the renovation and modernization of all district high schools
Measure CC (2018) — $275 million providing a secure and stable source of revenue to allow FUHSD to continue the work started under Measures B and K to build classrooms and modernize facilities at all five high school campuses.
Measure K (2014) — $295 million school bond “to avoid overcrowding at the District’s five high schools by building the new classrooms and facilities needed to serve a growing student population, updating computer network capability and science labs, upgrading classroom computers and technology, and replacing, acquiring, constructing and renovating school facilities”
Measure B (2008) — “$198 million to construct and renovate classrooms and science labs, replace or modernize aging food service facilities, construct solar electricity systems, replace aging infrastructure, create a long term technology fund, modernize our tracks and fields and implement other long term facility improvements”
We, as taxpayers, should demand accountability for the significant amount of financial support we willingly provided to FUHSD over the years. Every area of FUHSD deserves a high school.
The top priority is that more voters living in the southern part of the school district need to actively speak out and write to the high school board and superintendent to ask for our proposed map division method to protect the interests of all of our existing high schools. At present, the simplest and most feasible solution may be: the FUHSD Trustee Area should align with the current high school attendance map. The basic principle must be that each of the five Trustee voting area has one high school in order to be fair.
On this basis, if necessary in the future, we can discuss re-opening Sunnyvale High in the north, but re-opening a new high school should NEVER be based on closing a high school in the south.
The email address of FUHSD superintendent and board members are:
graham_clark@fuhsd.org, rosa_kim@fuhsd.org, jeff_moe@fuhsd.org, naomi_nakano-matsumoto@fuhsd.org, stanley_kou@fuhsd.org, rod_sinks@fuhsd.org
Be sure to send the letter before the district meeting on Tuesday evening, 9/19, and stay tuned for subsequent district meetings. The meeting on the evening of September 19 at 6:15pm will discuss the pre-map and procedure of transition from At-large Elections to By-Trustee Area elections.
In person meeting will be at the FUHSD office, 589 W. Fremont Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94087. You can also attend the meeting on Zoom https://fuhsd-org.zoom.us/j/96036721878
Link to the FUHSD district meeting details: https://fremontunionhighschoolca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Calendar.aspx