Montessori school seeks home: San Carlos Elementary School District looking at Arundel, Heather and another part of Tierra Linda

Presently, Edison and the two district special education preschool classes and preschool support services are located on seven portables on the upper campus. The district hopes to move the Charter Learning Center to the new location by the 2016-17 school year, Chief Operating Officer Robert Porter previously said. The school board has directed staff to explore options for Edison Montessori on the Arundel Elementary campus, the Heather Elementary School campus or a different part of the Tierra Linda campus than where it is currently located.

Although the district is not required to relocate the Montessori since it’s a private school, the district would like to help the school find a new location, said Trustee Nicole Bergeron.

“It’s been on our campuses for so long,” she said. “It’s just an important asset in the community.”

The school itself would prefer Arundel since it is nearby the current Edison campus, said Edison Executive Director Ann Delo, who has been with the Montessori for 19 years.

Cost of move, further study

The move should cost anywhere from $1 million to $1.4 million depending on district site location. This includes cost of classrooms, along with site development for utilities, a play yard, parking and grading. The district received $80,000 in lease income from Edison in 2013-14. As the district reviews its lease arrangements with outside partners, this arrangement would also be examined and an increase would likely be renegotiated, according to a staff report. Established in 1982, the school hosts students age 2-6. Classes include toddler, preschool, kindergarten and after-school programs.

Any cost associated with moving Edison Montessori, currently located at 750 Dartmouth Ave. in San Carlos, would be the responsibility of Edison. The school requires about four classroom-size portables and a play space for the children, totaling approximately 11,500 square feet of land, according to a staff report.

The cost to move is expensive, but not insurmountable for the Montessori, Delo said.

“It’s gonna be tough, but we always make it,” she said.

One thing the district may take into consideration is keeping the Montessori school and special education program on the same campus, as a number of parents have explained that there is a mutual benefit to children at the two schools, Bergeron said. She will be touring the school to learn about the interrelationship between the two programs.

“Trying to co-locate two schools at a new site is harder,” she said. “The concerns (for the Montessori’s relocation) are cost, impact on the receiving site, whether we can try to keep them together and fairly complicated timing issues. When do they need to be off of where they currently are and when can the new site could absorb them?”

Mainstreaming, which is bringing the special education students into the Montessori program, is a huge benefit of co-location of the Montessori and special education programs, Delo said. Montessori students are even sent over as role models for the special education students, she added.

At this point, board Vice President Carol Elliott doesn’t have preference for where to place the school, she said.

“In my opinion, it was clear to the board that it is in the best educational interest of children (many of whom feed directly into the SCSD) for the district to work creatively to find a new location for Edison, if at all feasible from a cost and space standpoint,” Elliott wrote in an email. “In addition to Edison being a unique and valued preschool program in our community, their close partnership with our special day preschool allows opportunities for full inclusion of some of our students in their program, which is a tremendous benefit to both our students and the district.”

At this point, there are still too many undefined variables — site configurations, cost, timing and other factors — with each of the sites, Elliott said. She wants to wait and see what staff comes back and the school board will weigh its options at that point, she said.

Trustee Seth Rosenblatt also hasn’t formulated an opinion on where to place the Montessori.

“I don’t have a strong preference,” he said. “We need a little more work done and get the details and the costs. Both (Arundel and Heather) could be pretty interesting and work out well.”

Land swap proposal

The land swap plan that could have placed the Charter Learning Center on new land was voted down by a City Council majority which believed it would increase traffic, eliminate precious open space and tax the city’s coffers building fields and fighting expected litigation by neighbors. The tentative deal called for the building of a new Charter Learning Center on the land. The district would have given the city approximately 4 acres on the backside of Tierra Linda, a 2.9-acre open space piece adjacent to Heather currently used as a dog park and $1.5 million to invest in a city-owned athletic field at Tierra Linda. If any of the three parcels were ever used or sold for development, the city and school would have split the profits.

Further, in August, the district voted to shut down the possibility of moving the school to Heather Elementary School.

Staff should be bringing back options, costs and a timeline for Edison to the board either at the Dec. 11 or Dec. 18 meeting for a final decision, Elliott said.

angela@smdailyjournal.com

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