First and foremost, WELCOME BACK! Our students return this morning, and that is
fantastic news. One of our principals
told me with great certainty this morning , “this is going to be a exceptional
year.” I have every confidence that she
is correct. Our staff is ready, we have exciting
new programs in place, teachers have been trained, and we get to serve some of
the finest students in the nation. We
are all very fortunate to be part of the Los Altos School District. Many thanks to the staff, administration, and
parents who make this the special place that it is.
(and in other news...)
There are so many moving parts in the litigation saga,
sometimes it’s hard to keep them all straight.
The primary thread continues forward on schedule- We have a hearing set for Aug 30 with Judge
Lucas on the BCS motion disputing the 2012-13 facilities, and the District’s
cross motion regarding the semi-private nature of the BCS program. Separately (but in parallel) there is the fee
motion that BCS has filed, demanding that the district pay their $1.3m legal
bill. (Link to original post here). The
schedules would have had these two hearings just one day apart, which was a
logistical challenge for the District.
More importantly, though, LASD has served discovery on BCS, meaning we’re
asking them various questions that pertain to how we will respond to their claim
for fees. BCS has so far refused to
answer discovery, so we first need to have a hearing with Judge Lucas to compel
them to answer the questions we’ve provided.
All of this means that trying to hold the hearing for BCS
attorney fees right now would be crazy.
Fortunately, this morning Judge Lucas agreed with the LASD attorneys and
has postponed the attorney fee hearing. We
have a conference call with the judge schedule to resolve the question of
whether BCS will be compelled to answer the discovery, so that will be our next
step in this ordeal.
I will update this post later today to include both the LASD
filings as well as the BCS filings with respect to the attorney fees.