I am happy to report that our lease for the use of this school campus has been renewed with the Menlo Park School District until 2016. The lease agreement was approved on April 13 by the Menlo Park School Board on April 13 and by the GAIS Board on April 20. The new lease is for 5 years and comes into effect on July 1, 2011 when our current lease ends.

The achievement of this result has involved prolonged discussions and negotiations with the school district over the past 6 months. A GAIS task force consisting of myself together with Board members Laura Vaughan and Martin Doettling, and School Attorney Daniel Zimmermann, lead the final stages of the process which resulted in a positive conclusion for GAIS in the extension of our lease at Elliott Dr. As many of you know, especially if you are Menlo Park residents, controversy over the fate of our campus has periodically appeared in the local press. While there will be gradual enrollment growth in the local schools over the next two years, demographic studies indicate that this will be followed by a decline in numbers in the subsequent years. This fact will alleviate the pressure to open up another public school campus and consequently give the GAIS community a sense of tranquility and an opportunity to do some facility planning for the next years.

The material support and positive attitude from the GAIS community over the past months has been greatly appreciated. This has been clearly shown in the exceptional fund raising campaign headed by Indra Pachtner and her team which resulted in donations of $95,000 to the school. With this, we will now be able to fund some of the critical projects which are needed to both maintain and improve our facility for next year. These improvements include the building of new parking spots to help ease the morning congestion. In addition we will need to resurface large areas of the current parking lot. In order to improve our Information Technology program, we will purchase a laptop cart for school classroom use. With this, classes will be able to use computers in their own classrooms and this will free up the current computer room for space needed in the Middle School for the MYP Program.  To support the growth of the Middle School program, we will create a new lunch and community area for these students and provide them with real Middle School lockers for their books and materials. And, finally, if we have enough left over in the kitty, or if a bit more is added, we will resurface the school’s whole hard court play area.

With a new lease, a shopping list of improvements to be made, and a bit of extra money in our pocket, the future of GAIS is looking better every day. Naturally all of this is for the benefit of our students, who remain the focus of our efforts as highlighted in our school mission.