EDITOR: As a fairly regular School Board meeting attendee and
Morgan Hill parent, I’d like to express how truly appalled I was by
the behavior of the four long-term School Board trustees at this
week’s meeting.
EDITOR:
As a fairly regular School Board meeting attendee and Morgan Hill parent, I’d like to express how truly appalled I was by the behavior of the four long-term School Board trustees at this week’s meeting.
One year after three new trustees were elected, the goal of the incumbent trustees seems to remain, “keep the newcomers in their place by reminding them of how long we have been here and therefore how much more we know.” This goal seems to override any sense of a need to examine issues closely or to work together as a team for the good of the students in this community.
On Monday, an agenda item was Accept Small Learning Communities Grant for Live Oak High School in the amount of $498,000. This is a three-year grant for implementation of major restructuring of all 9th through 12th grade classes at Live Oak High School into clusters.
Clustering has been discussed by the educational community for more than 10 years. However, it is still not a proven methodology, nor is it clear what would happen after our three-year experiment completes.
This implementation proposal for Live Oak has not been discussed with the community, yet Principal Rich Knapp anticipates that the clustering model will be followed for both Sobrato and Live Oak. Even our three newest board members have not been briefed on the proposal by the district administration. By accepting this grant, we are committing ourselves to experimenting on our kids with this questionable educational philosophy.
This agenda item therefore should have received thoughtful consideration by the board, yet all board members received their copies of the grant request at 5 p.m. that day.
Trustees Shelle Thomas and Amina Khemici pleaded for a two-week postponement of a vote on accepting the grant. They felt they could not adequately represent the community by voting when they hadn’t reviewed the proposal and didn’t yet understand its implications.
Demonstrating complete lack of respect for the perspectives or insight of the newer board members, Tom Kinoshita abused his position as Board President by forcing an immediate vote. We, the community, elected new board members who promised more diligent oversight of administration proposals and policies. Obviously, after a year, the longer-term board members still don’t get it.
Elizabeth Mandel, Morgan Hill
Editor’s note: Kinoshita was joined by Del Foster, Jan Masuda and George Panos in accepting the grant. Khemici and Thomas were joined by Mike Hickey is seeking the delay.
