As I listened to the candidates for both the Morgan Hill and
Gilroy school district boards at a recent forum, I realized that
parents of private school students are a greatly unexplored
resource here in the South Valley.
As I listened to the candidates for both the Morgan Hill and Gilroy school district boards at a recent forum, I realized that parents of private school students are a greatly unexplored resource here in the South Valley. Only the candidates from Gilroy acknowledged that it’s a shame to lose students to alternative schools if families are dissatisfied with the district. The looks on the faces of Morgan Hill’s candidates in response to the question of ways to win private school families back showed that such families aren’t even on their radar.
Two years ago, The Dispatch ran an article about the number of Gilroy youth attending private schools. I still wonder if anyone in MHSD knows how many of its students are lost to private schools and why. My daughter began her school career at public schools during the four years we were in Austin, Texas. I would love to have my children attend public schools here in Morgan Hill. I miss being part of an important segment of our community, and our family life is fragmented as my daughter travels 25 miles to high school. Also, I resent having to pay thousands of dollars for the small class sizes, resources and responsiveness we used to get for free in Texas.
Every year, I check out the public schools, and I find an educational paradigm that no longer works: large classes, teachers without sufficient support, a directive to teach to the test. Also, where they fall far short in comparison to the private schools we’ve chosen is in how they relate (or rather, don’t) to parents and even their own teachers.
Every step in navigating the school district seems to be staffed with a gatekeeper who sees each parent as a potential problem, not a partner. It’s a fight, when there shouldn’t be one in the first place. MHSD’s ridiculous practice of shifting students between schools after four weeks into the school year is just one example of how clueless it is about what families need and how parents feel.
Still, we could come back. It’s not just that private school parents don’t consider the local high schools as options. The local high schools do not see themselves as a choice for families who are fortunate enough to have one. While the rumor persists that the public schools do not offer a sufficient college prep education, it would take little to demonstrate to the public that they do.
Scores of students from Live Oak and Gilroy attend four-year colleges and universities, including Harvard, Dartmouth and Stanford. Public schools also offer an unparalleled experience with a rich diversity, both ethnic and economic, of youth and their families. However, there are no high school information nights for families who don’t attend district schools, or opportunities for prospective students to visit or “shadow.”
Such an effort to attract children from local elementary private schools and keep high school students from traveling to San Jose, Salinas or Watsonville isn’t that expensive or hard. It just requires a culture shift within district administrations, away from letting themselves be buried under bureaucratic BS and toward proactive and innovative measures to meet the needs of everyone. This would require true partnership with parents and teachers, rather than holding them, at best, at arms length.
I urge all parents of private school students to note the public school board races in their respective districts and let your voices be heard in November.
With low-achieving schools facing sanctions, and the middle and high schools still struggling to address the needs of both high- and low-achieving students, Gilroy needs people who are open to innovation and helping the schools build involvement from a broad base of the community.
Oh-so-polite MHSD must rebuild the trust shredded by mismanagement of the construction of the new high school, and renovation of the old. Only 65 percent of the work on both is complete, and the district is almost out of money. How will the new board lead the district out of this morass? Also, this new board will select a new superintendent to replace the arrogant one who is condescending and disrespectful to parents and teachers alike.
Let’s hope that the new school boards and the superintendents in each district can be real and forthright enough to meet the challenges they face to achieve what each needs for its youth, and create something we can all come home to.
