Members of the Board of Education and Palo Alto Unified School District families area calling for Stanford to fully mitigate expenses incurred by the district as a result of its new proposed expansion plan.

In its General Use permit application, Stanford proposes to build 550 tax-exempt rental apartments which would add roughly 275 PAUSD students.

“We are happy to welcome any and all students and to educate them, but we want to be able to continue to provide the same level of excellent education and support as we currently provide,” said Meb Steiner, president of Classified School Employees Association and an aid in Paly’s Special Education department. “That will not be possible if there is a shortfall in our budget and less money per pupil, so we are asking Stanford to fully mitigate the impact of their expansion.”

“We are happy to welcome any and all students and to educate them, but we want to be able to continue to provide the same level of excellent education and support as we currently provide.” –Meb Steiner

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Paly alumnus and current state senator Joe Simitian and Superintendent Don Austin echoed this sentiment.

“While we totally support Stanford’s growth plan, we just want to make sure that it doesn’t occur to the detriment of our school district,” Austin said.

The full mitigation requested by the district included contribution to new student education and help with financing a new elementary school.