The stream of complaints from parents and students about the disparity of – you name it – facilities, amenities, band uniforms, sports teams, etc. – between Sobrato High School and Live Oak High School began soon after Sobrato opened. Since then, the complaints from both sides about disparity in coverage, especially sports, have been fairly regular.
As a community member who doesn’t have children at either school, but wants to know what’s going on at both, I don’t notice one receiving more coverage than another. Meanwhile, people complain about the size of pictures and headlines. Ugh! The divisiveness the complaints cause is a harbinger of things to come for Gilroy when Christopher High School opens.
When I was a teen, Independence High School opened and decimated our class. Attending the oldest, most outdated high school in the district, I don’t remember begrudging the new 76ers their astonishing gym, their sunken football stadium, not even their instantly huge, traveling marching band. (OK, so I missed football coaching legend Al Cementina, but everyone did). I also don’t remember the parents making a fuss about anything. After all, we were just one of 11 high schools.
I harrumphed after reading recent letters to the editor (only two of which commented on the Sobrato drugs article, none from ADULTS, I note) and still wonder why I’m so irritated. I contacted my former classmate who moved to Independence, Mario Banuelos, and my mother for corroboration. What they gave me was a reality check.
The new high school didn’t have any traditions like Lick, said Mario, but the superintendent considered the new school his baby, with its then-innovative “villa” approach to managing a large school, and was criticized loudly for it. My mother concurred, and talked about the parents’ dismay about all the preening for photos with state and national officials, and pouring scant resources into the new school while the other older ones were left wanting. The new school siphoned off good teachers and created an exodus she thought hurt our school.
My mother also recalled when James Lick was built in 1950 and then the second high school in the district in 1952. She said the response from parents and students was similar to Morgan Hill’s. So, we weren’t so “above that” after all. Perhaps conflict and (unhealthy) competition in Gilroy when Christopher High School opens may be unavoidable.
As I said, as an interested community member, I see the two schools have distinct cultures; one has a long, strong tradition, the other is building one. One has a newer campus, but the other has stadium lights for night football games. They BOTH have drug problems serious enough for us all to be concerned (the subject of a future column, you can count on that). Both have teams that are covered by the newspaper whether they win or lose. How lucky is that!
If there’s a complaint I have about local news coverage, it’s not about which school is covered more, it’s that, after 10 years here, I still don’t have a good sense of what I need to know about them. And while the newspaper seems to be the best place to get the information, it’s not the paper’s fault, but the district’s and the schools’, who are too passive in how the schools are covered.
The fact that one of the reporters has covered local schools for years, has children and is very active in the district is a huge plus for both schools. To increase school publicity, the paper started a page dedicated solely to school achievements and activities and receives a list from one of the schools. However, mostly, the reporters work off what they glean on their own.
Although the district submits a semi-annual update from the superintendent, I don’t read anything that connects to what are goals of each school, progress/challenges of each toward those goals and what specifically the schools want and need from the community (me) to support them and how they want me to do so. I insist I am not unique but I am one of many people in the community who wants this information.
To us outside of the two schools, the schools are distinct, but not separate. They’re The High Schools, part of us, part of a larger community that cherishes both, because they educate OUR children. The complaints create a separation between the schools and in the community that shouldn’t be there, and I think that’s why they’re so irritating.
