The following individuals and organizations deserve either
cheers or jeers this week:
The following individuals and organizations deserve either cheers or jeers this week:
CHEERS: For administrators and teachers of Gilroy Unified School District. The state’s most recent data indicates that all secondary schools in the district are improving how they rank among schools with similar demographics, such as percentage of disadvantaged children, English Language Learners and under-qualified teachers. Our cheers do not just celebrate that accomplishment, but rather the iron will the district has shown in implementing staff development programs, equipping classrooms with improved textbooks and offering intervention for below-grade-level students – all of which contribute to better test scores.
GUSD has a long way to go to meet its self-initiated goal of having 90 percent of its kids score at grade level on state tests. But compared to three years ago, things are looking up.
JEERS: For City Council for approving sending the $25 million police station project out to bid. This rapidly escalating project needs the brakes put on it – now. It needs to be redesigned into a much less grand, much more taxpayer-friendly facility before time and energy are spent collecting bids for a facility this community can’t afford.
CHEERS: For news that the Forum, the partner-swapping sex club that has been plaguing Gilroyans for several months, is planning to move from its Dryden Avenue address. It’s not clear if pressure from camera-toting neighbors or county land-use enforcement caused Deena Luce to move, but it’s good news either way. Let’s all hope Luce and her patrons find a place far, far from South Valley to land.
JEERS: For San Martin residents who have already filed a class-action lawsuit against Olin Corp., which has admitted responsibility for the perchlorate plume that’s contaminating wells in the area. Olin has so far acted in a responsible manner, and residents should give them a chance to live up to their obligations before hounding the company with lawsuits.
JEERS: For GUSD staff, for its handling of changes made to elementary school enrollment boundaries. The district found a way to redefine the concept of a neighborhood last week. Establishing the Luigi Aprea boundary by cutting Sunrise Drive down the middle of the street, the district put area residents in the precarious position of having neighbors who play together and break bread together attend separate schools.
The district revised its plan to accommodate a handful of vocal parents, but kept its boundary down the middle of Sunrise Drive in an area where few homes have yet been built. Expect the same problem in two or three years.
Boundaries have to be drawn somewhere, but in a district that is trying to establish its new neighborhood schools policy, boundaries cannot be drawn down the middle of a road.
