Community forum slated Tuesday to review latest changes for
middle and high schools
In what appeared to be a consensus, Morgan Hill School Board trustees on Monday all expressed their liking for a newly created option for secondary school boundaries, alternate 7.
“If we look at alternates 1 through 6, we didn’t have a place for choice (choice enrollment at the high school level),” Trustee Amina Khemici said. “I feel comfortable with alternate 7 because we have room for choice.”
A community forum to discuss the new option will be held Tuesday from 6-7 p.m. in the board room at the District Office, 15600 Concord Circle.
The board has heard the recommendations of the boundary committee, made up of administrators, parents and community members, which met weekly for more than six months. The district is drawing up secondary school boundaries because of the projected opening of Sobrato High School in August 2004; trustees have said they will make a decision on middle and high school boundaries at the Nov. 3 meeting.
The boundary committee was also charged with redrawing elementary boundaries, but a decision on those is tentatively scheduled for January.
Three community forums were held to get parent and community input on the boundaries the board is considering. Forum facilitator and Sobrato Principal Rich Knapp collected comments from those attending the forums and gave a report to the board Monday.
As a result of comments from parents during the forums, two additional boundary options were drawn up, based on a 1.5-mile walking radius of the schools and on a 1-mile walking radius.
Alternative 7 is a variation of a north/south boundary, which some of the parents who attended the forums advocated.
“This morning, we took a look at the north/south boundary again, but the north/south is not balanced, so we modified it,” Knapp said at the meeting Monday night. “The result we came up with has many good points, including the fact that it leaves more room for choice.”
The modified version – alternate 7 – would let students who lived within walking distance of Britton Middle and Live Oak High attend those schools; but students currently at El Toro Middle would still be in the Martin Murphy/Sobrato boundary.
Some board members and parents have said if the two high schools will not offer the same programs or extra-curricular activities, then they wanted students and their parents to have the option to chose the school that offered what they wanted.
Alternate 7 apparently would leave Live Oak with more room to accept students who didn’t want to go to Sobrato.
Trustee Mike Hickey, who said alternate 7 appealed to him because of the choice issue, took the opportunity to address the attitude of some parents who he said are only thinking of their own children.
“It’s almost hilarious to me how things change,” he said. “Years ago, everyone wanted to go to Murphy … now the concept of neighborhood schools seems to be becoming more important. It goes back and forth.
“But one thing I see is that everybody’s out for their own kid. That’s not necessarily bad, because you should be an advocate for your child. But it’s not the whole picture. It’s like that guy (a speaker that addressed the board) who wanted to forget the kids in San Martin and San Jose and focus on Morgan Hill. They are a part of the district, too.”
Hickey also directed his comments at a group of Nordstrom and El Toro parents who say their schools have been “unfairly picked on” over the years because they have had to go to Murphy and would now go to Sobrato as their high school instead of Live Oak.
“Just because you think everyone (at Nordstrom and El Toro) wants to go to Britton and Live Oak, it’s not necessarily true,” he said. “That’s just the people you talk to, the friends that you hang out with. There’s a whole other group of people who want their children to go to Sobrato.”
Board President Tom Kinoshita and Trustees Shellé Thomas, Del Foster, Jan Masuda and George Panos all said they also liked alternate 7. Foster did say he had “grave concerns” about Oak Glen Avenue, because students living in that area would possibly have to get on the bus at 5:30 a.m. unless a restriction that the school bus can only pick up students on one side of that road can be lifted.
