Dashing To Grandma's House for Cookies After School?

 The Piedmont school board had a little “conversation starter” Wednesday evening.

The starter, in the words of Assistant Superintendent David Roth, was the idea of opening up Piedmont schools to the out-of-town grandchildren of residents.

It is both a potential revenue-generator for the Piedmont Unified School District and a “service to residents who are paying the parcel tax, a way in which we can serve them and their families,” said Roth.

After support expressed by seven speakers and general support voiced by school board members, Superintendent Connie Hubbard said staff will bring to an upcoming board meeting a report on various scenarios to proceed with a policy, perhaps pointing toward the 2012-13 school year.

Beverly Hills has such a policy. It has resulted in a lawsuit with one point of contention being who qualified as a grandparent, Hubbard said.

“It might be good to look at the Beverly Hills policy and how they handle capacity and (administrative regulation issues),” said board member June Monach.

Resident Bill Drum advocated the idea, saying, “It’s symbolic that the board has an interest in this group not directly associated with schools but important to them by supporting parcel taxes."

Resident George Childs thanked the board for bringing the idea forward. He said a survey is needed to estimate the number of children this might affect and revenue to be expected.

Anne Rojas of Berkeley thanked the board for considering this, which would help her family by fostering “the active relationship that my kids would have with their grandparents by being able to go to school here.”

Board member Ray Gadbois found the concept of enhancing a connection with grandparents interesting. “I like this idea a lot,” he said.

Board President Roy Tolles said that, judging by the public comment and the positive emails he had received, he expected there would be more than 100 children whose parents would look to take advantage of the opportunity. If the district decides it would only the have the capacity for, say, 20 students to be chosen by lottery, Tolles said the district should not pursue the policy because of disappointing too many people.

Earlier in the evening, the board had unanimously approved policy guidelines for enrollment capacity for schools in the district, including student-to-teacher ratios for each school. This was both to establish a foundation for the discussion of a grandchild enrollment policy, said Roth, and to comply with the state’s Open Enrollment Act, which took effect a year ago.

The general education program capacity approved in the resolution included these ratios:

• 20:1 in grades K-3 in the three elementary schools;
• 25:1 in grades 4-5;
• 26:1 in grades 6-8 at the middle school;
• 26:1 in grades 9-12 at Piedmont High School;
• 20:1 in grades 9-12 at Millennium High School.