There was an article in this morning’s Mercury News about a grand jury investigation into Santa Clara County’s school districts and what to do about soaring deficits while keeping the level of education from suffering. The recommendation was to combine feeder elementary districts with the high schools that they feed into.
So, for example, they recommend combining the Whisman/Mountain View and Los Altos elementary districts with Los Altos and Mountain View High Schools. They also recommend the same for Saratoga and Los Gatos. On the surface, while one can argue the merits of one big district vs smaller districts, both from an educational and financial stand point, these combinations do not stand out to me as having a huge change in what parents perceive as quality vs non quality education. I'm not saying there would not be some level of concern, but I don't think that these consolidations would cause great panic.
However, I believe that just the talk of combining the Fremont Union School District with both Sunnyvale and Cupertino Elementary Districts could send shock waves through the real estate community. Anyone in this area is aware of the desirability of the Cupertino School District. Buyers pay huge premiums to be in the Cupertino district. If the district is combined with the Sunnyvale Elementary district fear might arise that the quality of education will be diluted. I'm not sure I believe that, but what I believe, and even what would actually happen, is irrelevant.
The worst thing for real estate values is uncertainty. When buyers don't feel comfortable with what will happen in the future they don't open their pocketbooks. The proposed high speed rail is a great example. People have been buying homes next to Cal train tracts for decades and they trade the known noise for a lower price. Now that there may be a high speed train, and no way of predicting how that train might disturb the area from a visual or noise perspective, selling a home near the tracts is almost impossible.
It's the uncertainty that is paralyzing home buyers.
So the point of this post is that Palo Alto already has a unified school district with K-12 in the same district. There will be no talk of changes here. Since it's a known rather than an unknown quantity, like the other districts, I think that Palo Alto will look even more attractive to buyers looking for good schools for their families and who are not comfortable with possible changes.
As I said, just talk of possible changes is enough to spook buyers in this very fragile housing market.
Marcy Moyer
Keller Williams Realty
650-619-9285
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