The School District Boundaries that Jack Built

By Carolyn Schuk

To anyone from any other part of the world, South Bay school district boundaries appear to have been determined by throwing darts in the dark.

For example, part of Santa Clara is in the Campbell Union School District, some of whose schools are in San Jose and Saratoga. And part of Sunnyvale is in the Santa Clara School District. Another part of Santa Clara is in the Cupertino School District, which has a school in Santa Clara.

It's a setup that makes for plenty of contention like the long-standing efforts of Saratoga residents to annex Campbell's high performing Marshall Lane elementary school, which is in the City of Saratoga.

But how did we get here?

This peculiar situation has its roots in the post-WWII era, a time when California was growing quickly and cities were annexing smaller towns and unincorporated areas, according to Supervisor Ken Yeager.

Before 1950, California school districts and city borders were one and the same – the same rational approach taken by most of the world. As San Jose annexed property, those rural districts didn't want to be part of San Jose Unified. "State law was changed to say that school districts didn't have to be contiguous," says Yeager. "There was no connection where the cities grew and where the school districts were."

Leaving annexed property in the original school districts also sweetened the deal, according to former City Council Member Frank Barcells, because districts retained their tax base. Except, of course, when they don't.

Such is the case with San Jose's North San Jose development. Although the proposed 32,000 residential units would be in the Santa Clara Unified School District, because the project is underwritten by redevelopment funds, property tax revenue returns to the redevelopment agency – not the school district.

One answer to the geographic dilemma would simply be to allow inter-district transfers. But California's crazy quilt of public school funding methods creates incentives for bigger districts, like Campbell Union, to accept inter-district transfers and for smaller ones, like Santa Clara Unified, to refuse them.

There are two types of school funding: revenue-limit and basic-aid. Schools are put in one or the other of these categories based on enrollment.

Campbell Union is a “revenue limit” district. That means that property taxes do not go directly to the district, but flow to the state and funds are distributed to the district based on enrollment. More students, more funds.

By comparison, Santa Clara Unified is a “basic aid” district, meaning that the district gets only a small amount from the state per student and city tax revenue flows directly to the district.

Basic-aid schools benefit directly from rising property taxes because they keep the additional revenue. But, as Santa Clara residents have seen in the past decade, basic aid districts are also exposed to steep funding drops when those tax revenues decline. While the revenue-limit method shelters districts from some of the impact of falling tax revenue, it makes the district more dependent on the state.

These designations are automatic, and Santa Clara is shy by about 1,000 students of becoming a revenue-limited district. With an influx of new students, the district's status would change. "But the problem is the years before," former Santa Clara Unified Superintendent Rod Adams told the Weekly in a 2007 interview.

Carolyn Schuk can be reached at cschuk@earthlink.net.