Beautiful Mountain Blog of Belmont

NEWS FLASH-- Belmont Measures I and N Pass

With a needed 55% voter approval for each measure both passed handily with each measure receiving well over 60% of the votes.

Measures I and N from the San Francisco Examiner:
Five schools in Belmont would get new classrooms, repairs to leaky roofs and other improvements if voters approve two bond measures on the November ballot totaling $70 million.

Measure N would give the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District $35 million to spend on facilities at four Belmont elementary schools - Nesbit, Fox, Central and Cipriani.

Measure I, a companion measure, would generate $25 million for Ralston Middle School. Both need a 55 percent majority vote to pass.

Measure I would cost property owners about $11 per $100,000 of assessed value annually, and Measure N will cost about $27 per $100,000, according to the school district. *With the median price in Belmont at $850,000 right now that would mean an additional $110.50 per year.

Measure N only impacts Belmont schools, so voters in Redwood Shores would not be affected.

 

Belmont's Nesbit School is Awarded the Coveted California Distinguished School Award

Belmont's Nesbit School Receives Coveted Distinguished School Award

 

This is the thrid Belmont school to have received awards for their academic excellence.

This year the California Distinguished School award went to Nesbit School for reaching the milestone of overcoming significant academic challenges to be honored as the recipient of the award.

Previous awards went to Central Elementary and Carlmont High School.

Congratulations to Nesbit's staff, the students and their parents for working together to achieve this lofty goal.

Visit Morganhomes.com for more information on Belmont Schools

Grand Jury Gives Carlmont High School a Lesson in Enrollment

The Civil Grand Jury directed Carlmont High Scholl to clarify its own open-enrollment program and limit the number of students who can transfer, increase capacity, or change school boundaries.

Carlmont is over its official capacity of 2,100 students. Administrators say the district's use of open enrollment - which allows students to choose a school outside the one designated by attendance boundaries - along with the popularity of Carlmont has caused the shift.

Superintendent Pat Gemma said for starters, the district plans to allow only about 80 open enrollment transfers to Carlmont for the freshman class that will start next fall, compared to about 220 transfers that were let in this fall.

Students with siblings at the school will get the highest priority, followed by those who chose Carlmont after making a documented effort to educate themselves on the options. ""There's no question in my mind nor the mind of the principal at Carlmont that 2,300 students at Carlmont is too many," Gemma said.

With that in mind is seem unlikely that Carlmont will be choosing the option of increasing capacity, and will likely be forced to move school boundaries. Currently, any eligible Belmont resident can go to Carlmont High while only certain parts of San Carlos may attend providing they are within the designated school boundaries. The third option has been to apply for an intra-district transfer to Carlmont.

This dilemma could have an impact on housing values as buyers are apparently more inclined to pay extra to live within the Calrmont School boundaries. The folks who bought in San Carlos thinking they were well within the Carlmont High School boundaries may find out that everything has changed—including what someone will pay to live there.

Help Us Go Green!

Help Us Go Green! Help us continue to decrease the need for environmentally demanding postal mail while enriching our schools—all while keeping abreast of Belmont’s housing market and local issues. For a limited time, for every verified email address we receive on our Newsletter Form we’ll donate $1.00 to Belmont’s School Force.* As Real Estate agents and homeowners in Belmont, we are directly involved with fielding questions about the local schools. The importance of quality education, beside the obvious responsibility of providing education as a social benefit, has a direct bearing on a city’s quality of life which translates indirectly into higher home values. Whether a homeowner has children benefitting from the great education Belmont’s schools provide or not, supporting the local schools is one of the least expensive and best investments a homeowner can make to increase property values. The Belmont/Redwood Shores school district continues to excel and part of their success is attributable to Belmont’s School Force™, a non-profit organization founded in 2001 which concentrates their efforts on improving the quality of education in our schools through fundraising for programs which would otherwise be discontinued. Our commitment to minimizing the impact we have on the environment is accomplished through available communication technologies such as our e-market updates and newsletters; our local Belmont blog, BeautifulMounatinBlog.org and our market reports web site MorganHomes.com. We’re running a business and part of our advertising campaign is to remind people of our services. We currently mail our Belmont Market Report, and the Morgan Report real estate update, to thousands of Belmont residents. With the prevalent adoption of high speed Internet access and quality HTML e-mail delivery options, our goal is to replace our postal mailing with e-mail and significantly reduce paper consumption and our costs so we may continue to offer aggressively discounted fees to our clients—it’s a win-win situation for everyone including Belmont’s schools! * Certain reasonable restrictions apply such as being limited to one email address per household, the email must be a verifiable, working email address and the request must come from a current Belmont resident so we can remove them from our mailing list—that’s it! Sign-up now!

Belmont Central Elementary School Wins Coveted "Blue Ribbon" Award

Another affirmation of Belmont’s commitment to academic excellence was demonstrated as Central Elementary school was recognized as a “Blue Ribbon” school--part of the national “No Child Left Behind” program for achieving academic excellence. Belmont’s Central Elementary School was selected out of a possible 120,000 public and private schools nationwide—one of 24 which earned this honor in the state of California. Belmont’s commitment to the finest education is one of the many reasons so many people choose Belmont as their home.

The criteria for such a distinction is:

“The NCLB-Blue Ribbon Schools Program is a 24-year-old program that encourages states to nominate public kindergarten through grade twelve schools that are either academically superior or demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement. California public schools were chosen from among the 2006 California Distinguished Schools. Private schools were nominated by the Council for American Private Education.”

“...the school must show a student proficiency level that places the school at the 90th percentile in English-language arts and mathematics in the highest grade tested when compared to other schools in the state.”

Congratulations to Belmont and the staff of Central Elementary School as well as the many volunteers, families, and organizations such as Belmont’s School Force for earning this high honor.

Carlmont Wins Another Distinguished School Award

The schools in Belmont continue to receive accolades as Carlmont High School wins another distinguished school award as reported by the district.

The district went on to say, "Carlmont, Menlo-Atherton, and Sequoia are three out of the 95 high schools designated Distinguished Schools in the State of California.  Schools were eligible to apply for the award based on curriculum, instructional program, and support for students and school climate.  The schools will maintain their title of Distinguished School until 2011."

That’s great news for Belmont, though it is increasingly difficult to get an intra-district transfer from another school to attend Carlmont; that spells challenges for the parents in parts of San Carlos who wish to send their children to Carlmont and are finding it impossible to do so now that the school is at capacity.

If you want to finds out if a home in San Carlos currently goes to Carlmont High School (boundaries can always change), log-on to their site and enter the San Carlos address you wish to search.

Drew & Christine Morgan Morganhomes.com

Visit our Real Estate Blog at ActiveRain.com

Disclaimer: This information is for entertainment purposes only and includes no legal, accounting or real estate advice nor is this response in tended to be specific to your situation-consult a specialist for your specific situation.

Belmont's School Force

Belmont's School force needs your support. Whether or not you have children in the Belmont school system, great schools positively impact your life in many ways. Superior schools provide an environment which engages the student enriching our society as a whole. There is less crime and more community support in cities with excellent academic programs. And if you own a home, your values are directly tied to how well your schools perform.

Please take a moment and read about Belmont's School Force program which has helped elevate our schools to their accomplished level of excellence.