The fear of change, specifically from a one to a two high school
town has been cited as a primary explanation for opposition to a
comprehensive Sobrato High. Dismissing the voices of reasons and
labeling them as opponents has been the primary modus operandi for
district leadership since Superintendent Carolyn McKennan
’s reign began.
The fear of change, specifically from a one to a two high school town has been cited as a primary explanation for opposition to a comprehensive Sobrato High. Dismissing the voices of reasons and labeling them as opponents has been the primary modus operandi for district leadership since Superintendent Carolyn McKennan’s reign began. A second favorite tactic has been using misinformation and non-administrators who have been selectively sheltered from comprehensive budget and educational planning to distance leadership from the fray.
The latest in a long series of such occurrences has been the debate over opening Sobrato. Teachers are now lining up against teachers for a battle that close district watchers recognize all too well as an orchestrated event – once again insulating a very small but select group of inner circle administrative cronies from the responsibility for their abysmal leadership and direction. The good news is that teachers throughout the district are slowly becoming more informed of high school issues and are less becoming pawns.
In better times, as was the case when this community was passing the school bond almost six years ago, opening the new high school would be cause for excitement and celebration. It is convenient to forget that those individuals now targeted as fear crazed anti-change traditionalists publicly endorsed the school bond and supported expansion.
It has been far more effective to paint the opposition as a racist, elitist, fearful, immoral, and unethical vocal minority. It is a calculated tactic that leadership labels realistic adjustment to changing times and any debate for logical alternatives as fear induced obstructionism. Declining student populations (down by over 1,000 districtwide, and 500 at Live Oak since the bond) and resources, and the indefinite postponement of Coyote Valley development, present a much different environment than this district faced six years ago. The real problem is instead the district leadership’s inability to be flexible to current factors.
Has anyone noticed that only about 10 percent of the Live Oak staff have volunteered to move to the new site? Other districts have waiting lists of employees looking forward to shiny new and updated facilities. The obvious distrust of some district site leadership must be shared by far more than the vocal minority.
An early cause of such skepticism was the blatant closed shop floor planning for Sobrato around clusters – and the direct lying to the school board regarding the inclusion of the teaching staff in such decisions. Sobrato is without a doubt the vision of an extremely small group of educators who religiously misrepresent wide support for their one-size fits all educational plan.
The lack of support for such a plan was clearly demonstrated when the teaching staff turned down a $500,000 small learning communities grant. That decision was painful for the loss of dollars involved, but was necessary due to the administration’s coercive inclusion of required wholesale heterogeneous grouping that would lead to the loss of advanced classes.
The fact that our leadership has been attempting to eliminate advanced core classes is no longer a secret to the community. It has been even less of a secret to teachers who are now routinely confronted with an ever growing and unworkable range of student abilities within their courses.
But our misguided district and Sobrato leadership now looks forward to the day that a fully clustered and small school will give them the leverage that they need to get the change that they (not the community) want. Offering a wide choice of courses becomes impractical in small schools. Even teachers who have fought for such choices will lose their steam when a rich curriculum means that every teacher will have a greater number of different courses to teach. Teaching one each of five different courses even in the name of student choice won’t be a battle that teachers will fight.
And just how will a small school really benefit students by being personal? Claims of research are a smoke screen. Teachers will still have five classes of the same size with 30 plus new faces each period. Allowing the lay person to believe that more physical classrooms equals smaller class size (when numbers of enrollment and teacher staffing determine class size) is a misperception that administration has been all to eager to foster when it can add momentum to their building campaign. In fact, increasing class sizes districtwide grades in 4 to 12 is now on the table as one way to free up the dollars to ensure the opening of Sobrato.
Even AP courses will be in jeopardy. Live Oak has many courses that enroll enough students for only one class. Spreading those students over two campuses will result in the extinction of such courses especially in times of tightening resources.
But rather than enter into an intellectual debate, it has been far more convenient to accuse those raising such concerns as being selfishly motivated. Such things as hoarding the quality of athletes for school teams are offered as explanation. With districtwide enrollment projections indicating around 2,400 9th-12th grade students beyond the next seven years, two schools of 1,200 will struggle to compete not only athletically but academically. (Other local enrollments include Hollister at 2,900, Salinas at 2,800, Silver Creek at 2,600, Oak Grove at 2,400, etc.) Such school sizes exist because they are the most efficient, cost effective and have the critical mass of students and staff to offer a rich curriculum. Of course, as our community has already demonstrated a willingness to vote with their feet, undermining athletics will result in an exodus of students to surrounding schools.
The absolute shortsightedness of including such programs as elementary music and all 7-12 athletics in a “brain-stormed” list of possible cuts is amazing. Even simple math will show that a $5,000 per student enrolled, the district will fail to realize their savings if only 53 athletes leave the district. Conservative estimates of the flights of students in the wake of such cuts are closer to 200. Cutting off our nose to spite our face doesn’t bother leadership whose ironclad buy-out clauses protect not only their salaries, but also recently discovered annual longevity bonuses that make them the highest, while their employees are the lowest paid (among comparable county school districts).
If we lose musicians and athletes, we not only lose games, but more importantly, we lose the students who create the very fabric of our campus environment. Ironically, we lose the very students that such misguided plans as heterogeneous grouping rely on for their success.
Sobrato skeptics are not afraid of a two high school town. Morgan Hill already has at least six: Live Oak, Valley Christian, Monte Vista Christian, Palma, Bellarmine, Mitty and soon to be Sobrato. What those labeled as opponents have been trying to do for several years now is to foster an open debate and generate a logical and competitive plan for district direction.
Whether it be limiting grade levels at Sobrato with expansion triggered by actual enrollment, using the site as a continuation or vocational school, postponing the opening, or any other logical plan that could contain costs, all that critics seek is any sign of intelligence. Instead, site and district “leaders” have cried foul and circled their wagons lest their cult-like plan be deviated from their dream. (And they’ve done it before in Soquel and at Homestead with devastating results).
When teachers are confronted with such tyranny, there is little that they can do other than rally the community (as in the advanced class issue two years ago), or take votes of no confidence (as they did with the SLC grant).
And yet the runaway train continues. Trustee Del Foster even exclaims that nothing will be allowed to derail Sobrato. Is having their name on a dedication plaque so important to leadership that the students, community and regular employees of the district will be enduring unjustified hardships for years?
Are more students per class and pay cuts for employees justified for fame? The district needs to come up with a reasonable plan and critics will become supporters – without one, the name on a plaque will only document their infamy.
Glen Webb is a Live Oak High physics and chemistry teacher and head football coach.
