School board will take up hot issue at Monday
’s meeting
“Not my child.”
Approximately 50 concerned parents gathered at Martin Murphy Middle School Monday night to attend the School District’s second boundary forum, and the majority of the vocal parents had the same message.
“I have a statement from a friend of mine who couldn’t be here because she was sick: El Toro and Nordstrom (elementaries) have felt picked on for years,” said parent Ruth Detmers, who has children at Martin Murphy and El Toro. “She asked why can’t other schools be picked on for a change.”
Detmers said many parents at the two elementary schools wanted their children to go to their neighborhood schools, which would be Britton Middle and Live Oak High as they proceed through the education system.
One of the few positive comments of the evening came from a parent who expressed concern that the boundaries be drawn or redrawn to benefit all the children in the district, not just a few.
“I’m here for the good of the community, the good of the children, the safety of the children,” she said. “We can’t just worry about our own individual situation.”
Sobrato Principal Rich Knapp echoed her statement Thursday.
“Our responsibility is to all children,” he said. “These parents have valid concerns about walking to school. At the same time, we have to remember the people in San Martin are just as important as the rest of the district. Eventually the board will be coming to grips with some of those issues.”
District officials arranged the forums to discuss possible new middle school boundaries and establishing high school boundaries with the projected opening of Sobrato High School in August 2004. Knapp, emphasizing that he was only there facilitating the meeting, said feedback from parents recorded by Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Branco would be given to School Board trustees, who will make the final decision.
Trustees will discuss boundaries again at their Monday night meeting.
The board has targeted its Nov. 3 regular meeting as the decision date for secondary boundaries. Tentatively, an elementary boundary decision will be made in January.
Trustees Shellé Thomas, George Panos and Del Foster attended Monday’s forum.
The recommendations presented at the forum and at the forum Oct. 7 at Britton Middle were developed by the district boundary committee, which met weekly beginning in January for approximately six months.
The committee was made up of district administrators, teachers, parents and community members.
Knapp told the parents, who continually interrupted his presentation on boundary committee recommendations to bring up concerns, that any decision on boundaries was not his to make.
“I am just the facilitator,” he said. “We will write down your concerns and be sure the board receives them.”
Trustees Foster, Panos, Jan Masuda and Board President Tom Kinoshita said at an earlier board meeting that they would accept the recommendations of the boundary committee.
Knapp said Thursday that he is not advocating one recommendation over another.
“As the principal of Ann Sobrato High, it’s not important to me where the boundaries are,” he said. “I don’t have a vested interest in one neighborhood versus another coming to my school. I would like to see that the ethnic numbers, the socio-economic balance is considered, but beyond that, whatever the board decides I’m really comfortable with.”
Parents expressed concern Monday night that their views were not adequately represented by the parents who served on the boundary committee. Two of the parents attending said there were two “representatives” from Nordstrom, and “they were both for Sobrato.”
Branco responded that committee members weren’t asked whether or not they had a “preconceived bias.”
“We received 34 applications, and the committee was selected by lottery,” she said. “Anyone who submitted an application but was not selected was asked to join as an alternate.”
Knapp said it was not apparent that anyone on the committee had a bias one way or another.
“The committee was very diverse,” he said. “They all didn’t come in with the same opinions.”
One of the Nordstrom parents said she was “not slighting the committee,” but she “just didn’t feel equally represented.”
The other parent said she felt “a lot” of the committee members were “there for the elementary boundaries.”
Knapp said the committee members didn’t have an opportunity to choose which portion of the boundary decisions they worked on, and the committee started with secondary boundaries.
Superintendent Carolyn McKennan spoke up to tell the parents this was the time for their concerns.
“Your opportunity is now,” she said. “It’s your time to be heard. No decision has been made.”
Parents attending took her words to heart, most of them expressing disapproval for the committee’s recommendations.
An El Toro/Martin Murphy parent, Jas Brogan, told Knapp he thought the committee should start over.
“Why do you bother us with these options when they’re obviously wrong,” he said. “Why don’t you present us with what we all obviously want? Draw circles around the school, draw a line, and call that option one.”
Brogan said there were populations that would better fit one school than the other. He asked if the agricultural program would be moving to Sobrato. Knapp replied that probably the farm would, but that possibly a part of the program would remain at Live Oak.
“I’m sure those that live in a farming area, like those around Sobrato, would have a greater interest in attending Sobrato,” he said. “So why don’t we send the rural folks to Sobrato and the computer geeks who live in the middle of town can go to Live Oak.”
Knapp explained that the district would try to respect choice placement for those students who wanted to be a part of a program that was not offered at their home school.
El Toro/Live Oak parent Lynn Wong, who has served on many district committees, including the Secondary Task Force, said if the district would honor choice, it would be a good solution.
“But I would like your definition of choice,” she said. “In my heart of hearts, I believe there is no choice.”
Wong also questioned how the guiding principles, as stated by the committee, were weighted when applied to each option.
Guiding principles were listed as:
“Maintain neighborhood schools; emphasize safe walking routes to and from school; minimize disruption (movement from school to school); equalize enrollment; size of school supports educational setting and capacity of site; account for future growth; address/equalize ethnic balance; address transportation issues; and support feeder school system.”
Knapp explained that board members had ranked the principles at their Oct. 6 meeting, and the majority ranked neighborhood schools number one.
During the discussion on principles, Wong asked, “Why ethnicity?”
Knapp replied that it was a legal issue, and that it was a benefit to all students to have ethnically balanced schools.
Brogan responded that schools that represent the communities they are in would be better.
The next step, Knapp said, will come Monday night when trustees again discuss the boundaries during their regular meeting. Feedback from parents during the two forums will be presented to the board.
“We did take their concerns and look at developing boundaries around walking areas,” he said. “We basically came up with more options: a 1.5 mile scenario, a one mile walking scenario and we are looking at doing a third one which is a modification on the one mile with a little more balance. Without the modification, all the minority population was in Live Oak and that just won’t work.
The Morgan Hill Board of Education will hold its regular monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the District Office, 15600 Concord Circle. Detail: 778-4660.
