We are a group of concerned community members.  Morgan Hill Unified School District is being very short sighted and not considering the near future needs of Morgan Hill families due to the huge amount of expansion in our city.  There are currently approved and completed building projects within 1-2 miles of the Burnett campus that includes 397 new homes.

 In order to estimate the number of potential students that would be attending Burnett Elementary, we conducted a survey of neighbors to arrive at a sampling data in order to predict what may be expected. 

 We were able to survey 87 homes, and based on this survey, we are able to estimate an average of 1.6 children per household.  When it is applied to the projected growth outlined above, there will be in Kindergarten – 6th grade 219 students eligible to attend Burnett.  This number grows by another 67 students when additional developments that are waiting approval are ready to build. 

 The District believes that there is plenty of capacity for new elementary school students. This belief is predicated on the idea that students can be sent to any school in the district, not just their closest neighborhood school. The District's capacity numbers show that:

 - PA Walsh can support an additional 331 students

- Barrett can support an additional 155 students

- El Toro can support an additional 187 students

- The District has capacity for 6,322 elementary students.

- The CURRENT enrollment is 4,775.

- 1,547 students would have to enter the system to push the elementary schools to full capacity.

- However, the District prefers to run the schools at no more than 80% capacity. Thus, the effective capacity is 5,058.

- This leaves a capacity of approximately 283 students before we hit the 80% district wide capacity level.

Based upon the current growth in Morgan Hill (demonstrated above), our elementary schools will reach capacity a lot quicker than the MHUSD is willing to admit.

 The most fiscally sound decision looking at the forward development and greater need of services in the Morgan Hill community is to reopen Burnett Elementary School.  The MHUSD is being short sighted and not considering a growing community.  Instead the over taxing of our other elementary schools is selected, which is truly unfair to the teachers, staff, students and families.

 While we appreciate and applaud the achievements of Central Continuation High School, we do not believe that the conversion of the District's largest campus (11 acres) to service one of its smallest populations is a prudent decision. We believe there are many other options the District could explore to accommodate the 60 projected additional Central High students. The District has a golden opportunity to modernize Burnett Elementary and re-open it as the shining beacon of high quality elementary school education in Morgan Hill.

 Our Children deserve a community elementary school. We call upon the Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Trustees to reach out to the community and work with us on real solutions aimed at helping the children in Morgan Hill.

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