After contentious discussion Monday night, the Morgan Hill Board
of Trustees voted 4-3 to open a community day school for students
that have been expelled from Live Oak High, Central High and
possibly including students from outside the district.
“We are concerned that you are implementing another program when we have 79 classified employees who have either been laid off or had their hours cut,” Service Employees International Union local President Bev Walker said during the regular meeting. “We ask that you think about this until we know where we are with the state budget and the district budget.”

The school would be located in two empty portables, which the district owns, on a site adjacent to the San Martin/Gwinn Elementary campus, and would be ready for students in the fall.

Concerns have been expressed about the advisability of locating the school for expelled students next to an elementary school.

The vote night to establish the school was 4-3, with Board President Tom Kinoshita and Trustees Del Foster, Jan Masuda and George Panos voting to approve the motion, and newly elected Trustees Mike Hickey, Shellé Thomas and Amina Khemici voting against.

The split vote demonstrates the differences between the “old board” and the “new board.” During the June 3 special board meeting, there was a split vote on awarding construction bids for Sobrato High School. This time, Masuda voted with Hickey, Thomas and Khemici to delay awarding the bids until the next bid package comes in next week.

The old board members, particularly Kinoshita and Foster, have emphasized at earlier meetings that the quality of the county program is poor, that the costs associated with it will be increasing, and that it does not offer services for special education students.

Another point emphasized by old board members is that establishing the school would meet one of the board’s goals for this year, the first goal. The goal is “Activate new and restructured alternative programs within the context of the K-12 Intervention Plan.”

One of the stipulations for yearly renewal of the contract of Superintendent Carolyn McKennan is accomplishing the board goals for the year.

The new board members have vowed to be fiscally responsible, one of the main ideas, they said, that contributed to their election in November. All three have pointed out, in earlier meetings, that they were not against the concept of the district’s starting a community day school, but the timing.

Assistant Superintendent Claudette Beaty, who has spearheaded the drive for the school along with newly hired Ray Houser, director of student services, gave the board a laundry list of reasons why the district needs to establish its own day school.

“To offer a higher quality program, the ability to serve special education students, to have a full day program, the integration of services with community support organizations, to increase attendance, decrease dropout rate, as a savings to the district, to reduce recidivism, to provide a seamless delivery of education to our students and increase return of students to traditional district programs with no loss of attendance,” she said.

Currently, the district sends students who have been expelled to a county program, the South County Community School (SCCS). As of May 15, there were 24 district students enrolled in this program. Ten additional students were enrolled in the Santa Clara County Office of Education independent studies program.

Beaty and Houser presented information on the program to the board during the May 19 meeting, and gave costs for this year’s program of $164,823, which includes $59,906 in supplemental service fees and $104,917 in lost revenue.

The projected costs and savings for next year were reported as $682,090 in costs if the district stays with the county program and savings of $294,840 if the district establishes its own school.

Khemici, who teaches special education at a private school in San Jose, had questions on staffing during both meetings.

Beaty said the school would likely be staffed with one full-time teacher, probably someone with special education certification, plus another certificated teacher on half-time duty who would also assume some administrative duties, and a part-time clerk. The plan is to have 15 students per classroom.

“That’s a lot of students in one classroom,” Khemici said, “especially when you have some students that are special ed or emotionally disturbed. Do you plan to have a school psychologist?”

Beaty replied that the community day school would probably share one of the secondary counselors.

“We have talked abut this two separate times,” Thomas said Monday. “In thinking about this, I think about what we’re after, which is a higher quality educational program for all students. I strongly support Bev’s (Walker) position. I look at the economic uncertainty … I think about wanting to do something right if we’re going to do it at all, and I think the timing is just not right for this … We cannot risk pushing this through, as quality as the program may be.”

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