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The Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District was awarded a $92,880 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help students affected by a landslide in the Santa Cruz Mountains get to school.
A landslide on Mountain Charlie Road in the mountains south of the Lexington Reservoir that officials first began tracking in February has for months blocked residents’ access to main roads, adding to commute times and raising safety concerns. As Santa Cruz County remains overloaded with requests for road repair work following several extreme weather events in recent years, residents near the slide have been frustrated with the years-long timeline they received for repairs to the road.
The high school district’s board of trustees unanimously accepted the grant at its Nov. 12 meeting. The funds must be spent by Nov. 4, 2025, to provide transportation to and from school for the 14 students in the district who have been affected by the slide.
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Though a temporary road has been constructed along the area affected by the slide, resident and parent Kathy Goudarzi said at the meeting that transportation would be essential for students if the temporary road falls into disrepair.
“Kids made this trek across the slide during the times when it was dark, when it rained, when it was foggy,” she said. “They expressed they felt isolated; parents started pulling their kids out of extracurricular activities. … They felt exhausted.”
The funds come from Project SERV, or School Emergency Response to Violence. Provided by the U.S. Department of Education, the project offers short-term support for communities contending with traumatic events in which “the learning environment has been disrupted.”
“Thank you very much for everyone who jumped in to get this going,” trustee Theresa Bond said at the meeting. “I hope it will relieve the stress for our students, especially those who wrote to us and shared narratives of how difficult their life had become in their high school years when they are supposed to be enjoying them. They carry this added burden every day.”
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