SamTrans is adding an additional bus run in the afternoon and one in the morning, to help alleviate problems that have led to students and worker being left off buses in the last few weeks. SamTrans will also adjust the path of Route 294 to pick up the kids at the El Granada Mobile Home Park. This expanded service, which SamTrans calls “Operation Sea Otter”, will last until the end of this school year, giving local agencies and the district time to find money, probably from grants, to serve these riders.

Cheri Parr, executive director of the Coastside Opportunity Center, which operates the buses under a contract with SamTrans, announced additional capacity at Thursday night’s meeting of the Cabrillo Unified School District.  SamTrans had added some additional capacity, but withdrawn it because it was concerned it couldn’t guarantee that level of service indefinitely. The new schedule is positioned as a temporary solution.

“Because of SamTrans, we no longer have an emergency,” said Cheri Parr.  “Now it’s up the the Coastside community to solve the long-term problem.”

At that meeting, the school board passed a resolution committing the district to working on the problem.

DISCLOSURE: Yes, Cheri Parr is my wife.

UPDATED: The CUSD board’s parcel tax resolution [PDF] can now be downloaded from Coastsider.

The Cabrillo Unified School District board of directors voted unanimously Monday night to place a $175 parcel tax on the June primary ballot.

The tax would apply to improved parcels.  Unimproved parcels would be taxed $30. Parcels whose owners are 65 and older would be able to apply annually for an exemption. There are about 8,000 improved and 4,000 unimproved parcels in the district.

According to the ballot measure, the goals of the tax are:

• A “highly qualified and well-trained teaching staff”


• Small classes in kindergarten through third grade


• Lower class sizes in middle school


• Increased range of academic programs a Half Moon Bay High School, including honors classes, science, math, and technology courses, literacy programs and


• Increased staff development time.

Monday, about forty Coastside schoolchildren who ride SamTrans to and from school will be turned away. Last week an extra bus was added by the nonprofit Coastside Opportunity Center, which operates the buses for SamTrans, to one run in the morning and one in the afternoon.  The Center added the bus when it discovered that students, mostly from Cunha Intermediate School, were unsafely crowding onto existing buses.

But SamTrans has terminated this extra bus.  Friday, after it was told by SamTrans to stop the service, the Center gave students riding the buses the following letter:

Dear Passengers of the Coastside Opportunity Center �

We are very sorry to inform you that late last night, the Coastside Opportunity Center was informed by SamTrans that we may no longer run the additional buses that we added this week to help with the overcrowding issue.  We are greatly saddened that starting on Monday, March 6th we will only be offering one bus with a full capacity of 18 seated and 2 standing passengers for each run of Route 17.  Unless another solution presents itself over the weekend, this will be the case for the foreseeable future. This was a decision of SamTrans and not the Coastside Opportunity Center.  If you have any questions, please contact Jonah Weinburg, Public Information Officer at SamTrans 650-508-6238.

Jonah Weinberg, public information officer at SamTrans, told Coastsider that the additional bus could only be a temporary measure, saying “We can’t guarantee that level of service and there is no funding for additional buses.” He also noted that SamTrans is forbidden by statute from providing school bus service.

Ongoing disclosure: Cheri Parr, executive director of the Coastside Opporunity Center, is my wife.

There will be a second special meeting to discuss a proposed parcel tax for the June ballot. The board of the Cabrillo Unified School District is holding a second meeting Monday night (tonight) at 6:45pm at the District office at 498 Kelly Avenue, next to Hatch School.

Based on the discussion at the first special meeting, on Thursday March 2, the parcel tax will be between $150 and $200 per parcel.  Some of the uses considered at the meeting on Thursday were class size reduction, special classes, and middle school transportation. 

The Cabrillo Unified School District board has chartered its middle school advisory committee [PDF of charter].  The committee will advise and assist the superintendent with the construction of the middle school, as well as provide accountability to the project.  The committe will not have responsibility for execution of the project.

In posting on Coastsider, board member Charlie Gardner says,

Currently we have the committee comprised of myself, and Roy Salume from the Board.Dr. Bayless, Mike Andrews (Cunha principal), and Jim Tjogas (maintenance) will serve as adjuncts.

The remainder of the committee will be filled with a certificated (teacher) and classified (administrative), and three (3) appointed community representatives. Currently we have five (5) well qualified candidates.

The board is still accepting applications until the first committee meeting, which will be held at 4:30 p.m. March 16 at the District office. The format will be a brief public interview process, then public selection by the committee.

UPDATE:  The County Times has a story on this situation with plenty of additional detail, including an interview with Superintendent Bayless. I also believe there will be a story in today’s Half Moon Bay Review.

Students from Half Moon Bay High School and Cunha Intermediate School who have no other way of getting home are crowding onto SamTrans buses designed for 20 passengers. The nonprofit agency that operates the buses for SamTrans says unless it can get some help with the extra passengers, kids and adults will be left behind.

The problem has its roots in the Cabrillo Unified School District’s decision to discontinue bus service, but the district says it’s not their problem.

Many of the students live in the Moonridge affordable housing project for agricultural workers south of Half Moon Bay, and have no other way of getting home.

The buses are operated by Coastside Opportunity Center, a nonprofit agency serving the poor, elderly, and disabled. COC operates bus service from Pescadero to Moss Beach under a contract with SamTrans.

Some kids have been walking to earlier stops further north in order to get a seat on the southbound bus.

“When I learned this was going on, we added the second bus in the morning and afternoon,” said Cheri Parr, Executive Director of the Coastside Opportunity Center since October. [Disclosure: Cheri is my wife.] The extra buses have alleviated the problems in the morning, but has unexpectedly encouraged more students who’d given up on getting a ride to try again. The result is more unmet demand in the afternoon.

Parr appealed to the Cabrillo Unified School District for assistance with the problem, but she was turned away. She was told the district has chosen not to spend its money on transportation. CUSD has not provided school bus service since 2002. The district does bus elementary school students from Moonridge to Farallone View Elementary in Montara. Superintendent Dr. John Bayless was unavailable when Coastsider called for comment this afternoon.

The cost of the additional bus is being borne by COC. “We don’t have the equipment, drivers, or budget to add any more buses when they’re needed,” said Cheri Parr. “And we can’t overcrowd the ones we have. Our first priority has to be the safety of the passengers.” The result is that beginning Monday, February 27, the afternoon bus will allow no more than twenty total passengers and everyone else will have to wait for the next bus, about 90 minutes later, or walk.

The Coastside Opportunity Center’s Parr plans to bring this problem before the CUSD board at a future meeting.

Time for a mini-celebration: This is the 1,000th article posted on Coastsider since we launched in 2004. Our second anniversary is coming up soon as well. More on that later.

CUSD to discuss parcel tax at special meeting March 2

The board of the Cabrillo Unified School Board (CUSD) has called a special meeting to discuss placing a parcel tax on the June primary ballot.  The meeting will be Thursday, March 2 at 7:00pm at the district office on Kelly Street.

This would be the fifth time in seven years the district has tried to pass a parcel tax.  The special meeting was called in response to a presentation from Montara resident Cindy Epps, communications & community relations coordinator with Back to Basics.  Epps encouraged the board to take another look at the issue, now that the divisive issue of the middle school’s location has been resolved.

The board had to call a special meeting so that the community could be properly notified of the discussion, while meeting the March 10 deadline for filing ballot measures. There was no discussion of the details of the proposed tax, such as amount, duration, any exemptions, and the list of uses to which the proceeds would be put.

It is still not clear that the measure would receive the necessary two-thirds vote to pass. In a survey in October 2005 about 60% of likely voters said they would vote for a $250 per year per parcel tax. [Coastsider’s analysis of the survey results and link to original PDF].  About a third of respondents said that resolving the location of the middle school was a precondition for a “yes” vote. Voters are still concerned about whether the district would be a good steward of parcel tax funds: 41% of respondents disagreed strongly or somewhat with the statement �I trust the Cabrillo Unified School District to properly manage tax dollars� and 51% of respondents said the District�s management of bond funds was either fair or poor.

Neither the state nor the district budget will be set in time for the June election. The governor’s May revision will come out in the middle of the campaign. It is widely believed that there will be a significant increase in school spending from last year, but the exact amount is unknown. This will create uncertainty about the amount the district needs and how urgent the need will be.

Superintendent Dr. John Bayless forecast that the combination of state increases and federal decreases will lead to a net revenue increase for the district of about three percent.

Half Moon Bay High School principal Susan Million and CUSD assistant superintendent Madeline Shearer reported that 86% of the district’s 275 high school seniors have already passed the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).  Of the 37 students who have not yet passed, 31 are English language learners, 18 of whom have been in this country for less than three years.

To support these students, the district is offering individual tutoring after school, a support class and review in the core classes of math and English.  Alternatives for seniors after June include a summer school review course and an additional summer CAHSEE offered only to seniors.

Superintendent Bayless presented a proposed schedule for new construction and renovation of the Cunha Middle School. The board formed an ad hoc committee to oversee the design and construction process and present their recommendations to the board.  Board members Charlie Gardner and Roy Salume will serve on the committee, which will include a teacher, a member of the district’s classified staff, and community volunteers.

The ad hoc committee will work with the architect, Dr. Bayless, and Cunha principal Mike Andrews on design development. It will present its recommendations to the school board on March 16. 

Community members who are interested in serving on the Ad-Hoc Committee can contact Roy Salume or Charlie Gardner by March 1. Members will be chosen at the March 2 special meeting.  The first meeting of the committee will be March 8. 

Two widely respected marine organizations have partnered with Hatch School to present a week of interactive educational programming geared toward understanding and protecting the world’s ocean environment.

Scheduled for the week of February 13th, the Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association and Gulf of the Farallones Marine Sanctuary are providing special support for this unique interdisciplinary program, which will engage students grades k-5 in a range of exciting, hands-on activities.

“Whether through math, art, reading, science or just hanging out for a night of conversation and ocean-friendly film, our whole school will basically be immersed,” said Dru Devlin, a Hatch parent volunteer who also works at the Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association. “It makes sense to integrate our marine environment with the curriculum, much as it is integral to the fabric of our coastside community life.”

Students will be taking field trips to visit the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center at Crissy Field in the Presidio; learning about water safety and wetland birds from rangers based at Half Moon Bay State Beach; watching a Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary-sponsored puppet show performed by parents; and participating in presentations such as the GFNMS “SharkMobile” and The Marine Mammal Center’s “Wonderful Whale” exhibit.

Personal responsibility and stewardship will be a special focus for fifth-graders, whose specially designed curriculum will include the perils of marine debris and other ecological threats as well as ways that students can roll up their sleeves and help keep beaches and oceans clean.

On February 9, the whole community is invited to join in Hatch’s first-ever “Family Ocean Night at the Movies,"which will include a presentation by local surfing instructor Dave Alexander and a feature presentation of the Academy Award-nominated documentary, “The Living Sea,” narrated by Meryl Streep with music by Sting. Local writer and filmmaker Gail Evenari will also show clips from her current project about sea turtles in Mexico.

“The idea is to bring alive the critical role our marine environment plays - whether as a source of food, habitat, amusement or beauty,” said Devlin, whose son is in the second grade. “Exploring and celebrating our oceans is a lifelong pursuit.  Why not start inspiring our children now?”

In the wake of a big year, Half Moon Bay High School has been transfered to the stronger of the Penininsula Athletic League’s two divisions. The County Times describes the head coach as “miffed”.

The move doesn’t sit well with Half Moon Bay. Head coach Matt Ballard had wanted his team to stay in the Ocean Division and had a couple of pretty compelling reasons to back him up.

“We had a well-laid-out argument (for staying in the Ocean Division),” Ballard said. “The first thing is that we graduate 22 players and will have only six returning starters. Our frosh-soph team finished the season with 14 players on its roster and had a 1-7-2 record.

“So if you’re looking at the coming years, as you’re supposed to do in a decision like this, moving up to the Bay Division is going to be a real hardship on us. We presented all this, but no one cared. If you win a CCS title, no one feels sorry for you, I guess.”