Jackson Elementary is hurting. The pain in some parent’s voices
rang loud Tuesday night in the library when Principal Garry Dudley
presented his outline of a plan that to some in a crowd of about 50
was more confusing than it was solvent.
Jackson Elementary is hurting. The pain in some parent’s voices rang loud Tuesday night in the library when Principal Garry Dudley presented his outline of a plan that to some in a crowd of about 50 was more confusing than it was solvent.
At a town hall meeting March 31, Dudley said he would present a plan of action with more details as to how the Jackson community will comply with restructuring the school by the first day of class, Aug. 17. Poor test scores from just one “subgroup” at Jackson, English language learners, put the Morgan Hill Unified school into year 5 of Program Improvement, which is determined by the percentage of students who do not meet proficiency levels based on state testing. Schools that do not meet the quotas fixed by No Child Left Behind must go through the hairy process that Jackson is facing now: Big, palpable changes.
“The restructure aspect, as we began the meeting tonight, we have a lot of thoughts and inputs on it, but that is not in our purview as far as Jackson to do that,” Dudley said. “We are part of a group to do that.”
Parents pleaded for clarity as Dudley began to rattle off percentages of quotas that must be met during the state testing which begins April 20. The confusion came when Dudley distinguished that the meeting would focus on the school’s “site plan” and not the “restructuring plan” – a big difference in terms of details, such as if the school day will be extended or if teacher’s will be given more time to meet during the week. Those suggestions will be expressed to the district, Dudley said, but the fine tuning won’t happen at Jackson or by the Jackson school site council.
Director of Curriculum and Instruction Esther Carlson was on hand to clear the air on some of the contention directed at Dudley.
Since operational changes will affect time spent by teachers and staff at work, the district must meet with the bargaining units and finances must be considered, something that neither the principal nor Jackson has control over, Carlson said.
There are two things that promote change, consistency and focus,” Carlson said. “I encourage the school to choose two to four that you know you can do.” She said that the district requires that their changes can be assessed to monitor growth.
Superintendent Dr. Wes Smith said the district is allowing Jackson to construct their ideas that to any audience will be broad and not with descriptive action items, such as “more teacher collaboration,” which is where the confusion might come into play.
“What we’re looking for now is that the learning community, staff, leadership, parents say, ‘these are the things we would like to see’ and we’ll finalize a plan with as many elements that match their plan,” Smith said.
Dudley asked if parents would return a sheet of paper handed out at the start of the meeting with their ideas written down at the last meeting; on April 13, Dudley said he had not received any of those sheets.
One parent pointed out that another school in the district sent home work packets over spring break for parents to go over with their children.
“We’re struggling, we’re going into year 5, how come we haven’t done that? How come we haven’t worked with the parents to try to increase their children’s test scores?” said Kathlyn Greubel, the Jackson Home & School Club Assistant Treasurer.
The climax of the meeting dissipated and Dudley said that he is “emphatically” asking the district to consider changing bus schedule to accommodate parents of English language learning students, as part of restructuring the school next year.
“There was a lot of fighting, disagreements,” Susana Diaz said after the meeting with the help of translator Jose Ramirez. “It was directed toward him, but I believe it’s not just him, it has to be the teachers, the parents, not just on his shoulders.”
Diaz said the homework club offered after-school were a real help to her children, but because she and her husband work in San Jose they could not always go since busing wasn’t an option later in the day.
The next site council meeting is 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Jackson library.
