News

With school district leaders taking a strong stance against the validity of the latest standardized test scores, trustees on Morgan Hill Unified’s board of education had their own takes on the data from the 2017 Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

A favorable sale of $80 million in bonds by local school district staff resulted in a lower price tag to the taxpayers than authorities originally expected, by nearly $2 million.

Charter School of Morgan Hill’s annual report, Morgan Hill Unified’s student expulsion and suspension reports, a review of the latest state test scores and an update on Measure G projects are on tap for the Oct. 17 school board meeting.

Morgan Hill Police Officer Todd Davis quickly applied his training and a donated portable resuscitation device to save an elderly resident’s life earlier this month, according to authorities.Davis was on patrol Oct. 4 when a call from the emergency dispatch center came over the radio reporting a medical aid incident at a home in Morgan Hill. While firefighters and paramedics were on their way, Davis said as soon as he heard the initial call, he looked up and he happened to be “right there,” outside the residence where the emergency was reported.“I was already out of my vehicle and in my trunk,” gathering his medical bag seconds after he heard the call from dispatch, he said.The call was related to a 77-year-old woman who was unresponsive and not breathing, according to police. Davis arrived at the scene “well before fire and paramedics,” reads an Oct. 12 press release from MHPD.“Time is the main factor” in such medical emergencies, Davis, 38, said. “You’ve got to hurry up and get them breathing, with chest compressions” and other first-aid.Davis entered the woman’s home as her “panicked” caretaker was performing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), he told the Times. He intervened in the resuscitation effort with an Automated External Defibrillator, which all on-duty MHPD patrol officers carry in their patrol vehicles.“My main focus was to bring calm, and start handing out directions,” he said. Davis, who began his career as a police officer about four years ago at MHPD, quickly applied the AED and continued performing CPR on the elderly woman for about five minutes, until paramedics arrived and took over.The story ended happily moments later, as the woman’s pulse returned shortly after paramedics arrived, Davis said. “She was talking by the time she got to the hospital,” he added.Davis said it “feels awesome” to know the woman survived the emergency and is on her way to recovery.“This is why you do it,” said Davis, who served in the U.S. Army for six years before becoming a police officer. “Far too often, the person doesn’t make it, and this is one of the rare instances where your efforts pay off. It feels wonderful.”Davis and MHPD also credited the the Morgan Hill Community Law Enforcement Foundation and Racing Hearts organization for helping, through donations, to place AEDs in local patrol vehicles. “That’s a new tool we’ve just had in the last year,” Davis said.For more information about CLEF, visit morganhillclef.org. For more information about Racing Hearts, visit racinghearts.org.

About a quarter of middle school students (23 percent) and nearly a fifth of Morgan Hill high school students (19 percent) said they’ve experienced some type of physical abuse by a family member or house guest, according to the latest YMCA Project Cornerstone Developmental Assets survey.

Morgan Hill Unified School District showed a slight decline in state student test scores this year and maintained a cavernous achievement gap between Hispanic students and their classmates based on the 2017 Smarter Balanced Assessment Results released last week.

Casino Fajardo, 37, is the Director of Construction and Modernization for Morgan Hill Unified School District, heading up the $198 million Measure G capital improvements projects throughout the district. He currently resides in South San Jose (close to Martin Murphy Middle School). He attended Nordstrom Elementary School and Britton Middle School, and graduated from Live Oak High School. He has two young children: CJ, who is currently a kindergartener in MHUSD, and Benji, who will start pre-school in the area shortly.

Voices College-bound Language Academies, which includes a Morgan Hill school among its three sites, was approved for a $2.7 million federal grant, according to an Oct. 3 press release.

A presentation on Morgan Hill Unified School District’s “Be Seen and Heard” sexual abuse training for students will be introduced to the board of education at the Oct. 3 meeting.

I would like to join the many voters in Morgan Hill that agree with John McKay’s “Our Town” commentary (from the Sept. 15 edition of the Morgan Hill Times) regarding district elections. Not only is district voting a travesty, but it is an insult to every voter in our city!We do not need to be told how to vote or who to vote for. The fact is, our city council has enjoyed amazing representation of the diversity of Morgan Hill. When we had a choice to vote someone out of council and vote for a new candidate, we did. This district voting scheme is just that: another way for losing candidates to force themselves on the voting public!Look at what has happened at the Morgan Hill Unified School District! In the last election, we had one district with only one candidate, because other very qualified candidates lived outside that district.District elections narrow our choices and may very well force the voters to send an unqualified candidate to office.On the MHUSD board, we have a split board that rarely, if ever agrees with one another, and we have a board member that we know very little about that ran unopposed from her district. We, in Morgan Hill, deserve better than this on our school board and at city council!Please don’t insult our intelligence with district elections and term limits. Let the voters decide who is best qualified and aligns with our values in order to address the complicated issues we face.This insult is being forced upon us because of a few losers that ran and did not win want an advantage to their losing cause.A threat of a lawsuit is a challenge, not a reason to roll over and give these losers an advantage. Shame on us!Ever Onward,Swanee EdwardsMorgan Hill