EDITOR: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead on Sobrato High
School. Live Oak needs textbooks, but all textbook dollars are
directed at Sobrato.
EDITOR:
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead on Sobrato High School.
Live Oak needs textbooks, but all textbook dollars are directed at Sobrato.
Live Oak athletic programs are being gutted, but Sobrato will offer a full menu. Live Oak can’t afford adequate janitorial services, but we are about to double our sites.
Live Oak renovations are not even close to completion but all are stopped because Sobrato is over budget and loans are even being suggested to finish that project.
The teaching staff has issued a “no” vote on clusters and heterogeneous grouping, but Sobrato’s structure is still just that. The staff was nearly unanimously against an ill-advised fourth year of social studies, but the requirement passed – after all, it is needed for the cluster structure.
Teacher raises and benefits lag terribly behind our competition – but no fear, we have nearly the highest paid management in the county. Lopsided population has caused us to split the community with boundaries that have many upset, but who cares, our administrators don’t live here.
The one uniting issue around the opening of Sobrato has been to have a 9-12 grade configuration. But will the gains that this vision produce be overshadowed by the expenses and losses of program and opportunities that our student will suffer for the luxury of two small comprehensive high schools?
Open Sobrato as a grade nine school only. Set an enrollment figure that justifies a comprehensive school. When the district has adequate enrollment then Sobrato may grow to 4 grades. Until that time, it remains a satellite campus of Live Oak. It contains the cost of duplicating programs. It makes boundaries a moot point. It makes equality between Live Oak and Sobrato a non-issue. It allows one principal instead of two to oversee our currently smaller number of students than what one principal managed 10 years ago.
It makes completing the entire physical plant at Sobrato unnecessary until growth to fill it occurs. It frees up building dollars to finish Live Oak and update our many other schools. It trims operating costs providing dollars to address urgent benefit and compensation issues for our teachers and classified employees. It unites a community that is neither big enough nor looking forward to being divided.
The only thing that such a plan does not do is cater to the aspirations of a small number of self-appointed closed shop “educational visionaries” that have a stranglehold on this district. The community needs our board members to intervene on our behalf. Stop the madness.
Glen Webb, teacher,
Live Oak High School
