Posted by Concerned Parent, a resident of the Menlo Park: The Willows neighborhood, on Jul 21, 2009 at 4:08 pm

Here we go again. The district now has the worst of all worlds: land in EPA with facilties they have invested in (and continue to invest more on a daily basis apparently), a plan for an adult school in Redwood City which requires a building to be torn down and another built, and apparently unused buildings on the Sequoia campus. And Mr. Gemma's comment: "I didn't know that charter schools could do that." That's pretty clear becasue anyone following this saga would surmise that if Mr. Gemma did know about it, he and the district would have pulled out the stops to block it and force Everest into the district's second rate site. I'm now waiting for the district's official response which I imagine will bemoan the lack of funds and try to blame Summit and Everest. At this point the district would be best advised to cut their losses, stop the EPA site and offer to pay the rent for the building Everest has set up. It sounds like it's a lot less than the Charter Street location, but it might mean actually cooperating with the Charter schools. Teachers looking at possible pay cuts should look to Mr. Gemma's poor management as a contributing factor.