The San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District is sending some of our children to schools out of the city.
Last week I received an email from a resident who moved to Foster City in July. She received a packet of information from the school district stating that all students will attend the schools that are assigned to them for that area. Her daughter who is going into 6th grade, therefore, would be attending Bowditch Middle School. However, when enrolling her daughter, she was informed that her daughter was on a waiting list and she would be sent out of Foster City to Bayside Middle School.
This has really perked my interest now. Bowditch has 15 6th graders on a waiting list. The SMFCESD says Bowditch is full and these 15 kids have to be driven out of our city to other middle schools each day by their parents. I hope you are starting to get as concerned as I am.
Anyone moving into Foster City for its high quality schools is going to get a shock of their lives.
Bowditch ranks 4th highest in the entire county for middle schools and is one reason why people chose to move to Foster City.
I asked myself some simple questions. How hard would it be to add 1 chair to 15 classrooms? How hard would it be to bring in 1 more portable? How hard would it be to hire 1 more teacher? How hard is it to estimate the student enrollment from 3 elementary schools, 1 private, and a history of all this for the past 20 years?
I think it is not fair or right what the SMFCESD is doing to our students. We already ship out all of our high school students because there is no public high school in Foster City. Now our elementary students are being shipped out also even though we do have the elementary public schools.
I will be meeting with the school district soon to communicate my concerns and to explore ways to resolve this issue.
Sending our elementary kids who want to go to school in Foster City but who are sent out of our city should not be acceptable to anyone who lives here.
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