Nearly $500,000 in grant money awarded to Live Oak High by the
federal government for the formation of small learning communities
will be refused after the Morgan Hill School District Board of
Education voted to rescind acceptance Monday night.
Nearly $500,000 in grant money awarded to Live Oak High by the federal government for the formation of small learning communities will be refused after the Morgan Hill School District Board of Education voted to rescind acceptance Monday night.
The vote was 6-1, with Board President Tom Kinoshita and Trustees George Panos, Jan Masuda, Amina Khemici, Mike Hickey and Shelle Thomas voting in favor of refusing the money and Trustee Del Foster against.
The Board had voted 4-3 to accept the grant during the Oct. 6 board meeting, after a lengthy and sometimes contentious discussion. Kinoshita, Panos and Masuda and Foster initially had voted to accept the grant.
The trustees disagreed over the purpose of the grant, the requirement to keep the small learning communities created with the grant money in place when the money runs out in three years and the contention by some parents and community members that small learning communities, which they call “clusters” are an attempt to homogenize the curriculum and force the students into block scheduling.
Proponents of the small learning communities say this is a fallacy, that the students would be grouped together to provide more opportunity for student advocacy, academic guidance counseling and personalization. The money from the grant would support staff development time and advocacy periods which would alter the working conditions of the staff.
Live Oak Principal Nancy Serigstad told trustees Monday night that her staff voted on the grant, after the original board vote to accept the grant, and 41 of 84 voting were in favor of accepting, 43 against. She had told staff she wanted a two-thirds majority to accept the grant; Monday night she told trustees the staff wanted 66 percent in favor to accept the grant.
“There are many reasons why our staff asked to re-vote, and the discussions we had over that period of time were difficult ones, but also very productive ones,” she said Monday. “We talked about what hard steps we would have to take as a staff; however we did take the vote, and I am hear to honor the decision of our staff … I would like to as that you rescind your acceptance of the small learning communities grant.”
Serigstad said Tuesday that less than $3,000 to date had been spent for teacher release time, and that money would come out of the professional development Title II funds, so no money will have to be paid back.
“Because we got the grant late, Sept. 30, we hedged our bets and did just the work that needed to be done,” she said. “Of course, once the discussions began, and it was clear everyone was not behind this, I put things on hold.”
Foster said he could not vote in favor of returning the grant, especially because the work it would have supported would have to continue.
“I personally cannot support the administration’s request (to rescind acceptance),” he said during Monday’s meeting. “We are turning down money that we will never be able to get again. I also agree that not having staff buy-in is critical; something else happened there, and I’m not sure what.
“But we will still have to do the work, because a component of the ‘No Child Left Behind’ is small learning communities. It is now federal policy … If we don’t comply, the person who loses their job is the principal. The board can be replaced, the administration can be replaced, but the staff will stay the same.”
Kinoshita said that even though he would vote to rescind acceptance of the grant, he was not convinced it a good decision.
“I will honor the process, go with the decision and Nancy’s leadership and vote to rescind with a lot of reservations,” he said. “I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about small learning communities.”
Serigstad said she also believes many people have the wrong impression about small learning communities.
“Look at HTASA (the Live Oak High-Tech Agricultural Science Academy), look at the Business Academy,” she said. “Those are examples of small learning communities,” she said.
Masuda said she was disappointed to rescind acceptance of the grant.
“I will honor, but with sadness, Nancy’s decision and the decision of the Live Oak staff,” she said. “I think one of the things we need to do is to go back and look at some of our basic building blocks, our district goals and objectives. Once we have our basic building blocks in place, then we can give direction.”
Hickey questioned the level of commitment of the teachers who voted in favor of the grant.
“If you took the $500,000 out of the picture and told teachers they weren’t going to get paid for the work that they would do,would they have still voted this way, because that’s where they’ll be three years from now,” he asked.
“Would they do it without the money? Yes,” Serigstad said.
“But also I see the union stand up and hand us this packet,” Hickey said, referring to the initial bargaining proposal presented to trustees by the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers at the beginning of the meeting, which asks for, among other items, competitive wages with teachers in other Santa Clara County school districts.
Serigstad said since the staff vote against accepting the grant had taken place, four committees have been formed to look at school-wide improvements. The committees will focus on the decision-making or governance process, collaboration, personal and academic support and the integration of the ninth grade curriculum, she said.
“The work is continuing,” she said Thursday. “I really believe our staff understands the work to be done. As we have talked, discussed it both in these committees and outside them, many of our teachers are doing these things (small learning communities activities such as student advocacy and academic guidance) already.”
