Dear Editor:
The Alliance For Academic Excellence has responded to events
that took place in the Gilroy High School Theatre last week during
school time by sending the following letter to Superintendent Edwin
Diaz and Gilroy Unified School District School Board members.
Dear Editor:
The Alliance For Academic Excellence has responded to events that took place in the Gilroy High School Theatre last week during school time by sending the following letter to Superintendent Edwin Diaz and Gilroy Unified School District School Board members. We urge your readers to do the same.
Our students deserve the best. If we, as a community, are not willing to speak up against a lack of standards in our public schools, then we share responsibility for the end result.
Dear Superintendent Diaz and Gilroy Unified School District School Board,
To paraphrase a popular advertisement, CAN YOU HEAR US NOW?
This week’s front-page story in The Dispatch about the Gilroy High School’s Spring Showcase and its questionable content for an educational institution should not have come as a shock to any board member. For the past several years, The Alliance For Academic Excellence, a grassroots organization of parents, teachers, and community members, has presented its concerns about academic rigor and excellence to the school board.
Though some important changes have been made, school board members have often deferred to the administration staff for solutions to curriculum-related problems. Unfortunate as this may sound, perhaps what was needed was an extreme example, like the skits performed by drama students during school time, for the school board to take charge immediately of a situation that is obviously out of control.
The Showcase presentation certainly was not a shock for the GHS community that is well aware its theatre program has been practically nonexistent for several years and that, what does exist, is lacking in rigor and educational merit. In fact, many parents received several phone calls on Friday, Feb. 8, from concerned staff and parents warning them about the invitation to students to attend the Theatre Department’s Showcase.
In a recent meeting with several school board members, The Alliance identified four obstacles to academic rigor at Gilroy High School: district philosophy, district management, personnel, and classroom experience. Despite this administration’s willingness to review specific issues and make changes, no significant improvement can happen until these core problems are addressed. The Showcase program is a case in point.
Philosophy: The Alliance has been urging the school board to adopt strong mission statements and goals that reflect this district’s educational philosophy and commitment to academic excellence. When any decision needs to be made, any program comes under review, any potential employee seeks a position, or any instructional material is considered for classroom use, the questions could be asked: Does this person or program support this district’s mission? Will this person or program help this district meet its goals?
If the Theatre Department had in place an adopted statement that specified philosophy, purpose, mission, and goals, any instructor in that department could use such a statement as a reference for making decisions that are within his power to make. For example, are the content and experience of a program like the recent Showcase skits in line with the department’s philosophy and mission? What is the educational purpose of such skits?
Management: Principal Bob Bravo’s response to the Showcase was a strong and appropriate one. He is quoted as saying, “It’s something I will be looking into. My line is, if it’s not something we’d let students talk about in class – if it’s not something we’d let kids wear on a T-shirt, it’s not something that should be in a drama production.” No doubt the superintendent, school board members, and other staff will offer similar comments.
At the end of the day, though, it is this district’s management style that allowed a program like the Showcase to exist and thrive. The lack of curriculum leadership, the inattention to classroom oversight, and a management style that is concerned with consensus and “getting along” were the true causes behind the choice of skits performed. The Alliance has been advocating for a top-down leadership style and for school board members elected by this community to assume their legal authority at the very top of the chain of command.
In the Alliance‚s Position Paper recently submitted to the school board, the problems with an educational philosophy that considers a teacher “not a sage on the stage but a guide on the side” is explored. It is clear from Mr. Meeker’s comments and from what occurred on the high school stage that this philosophy is driving his program and his decisions. Parents who enroll their students in any class or program at the high school have a right to expect the teacher to be in charge and to use the time for which taxpayers are paying to impart knowledge and skills.
Personnel: For those who are well aware of the dismal state of the high school Theatre Department and have watched its wasting away to a skeleton of its former self the past few years, the question that needs to be answered is whether the needs of students enrolled in drama classes and programs are being met. It is the school board’s responsibility to ensure that the administration hires a drama teacher who has the qualifications to provide a quality educational theatre program at GHS in line with this district’s mission and goals.
Classroom experience: The Alliance acknowledges the GHS staff and its commitment to educating Gilroy’s children. Teachers are asked to go beyond their official duties, and they have repeatedly shown a willingness to do whatever it takes to improve student achievement. Many teachers agree with The Alliance’s position that there is a culture at the high school that has promoted a lack of respect for the classroom experience. The Alliance has reported to the school board many examples of this, and the Showcase is now one more.
The students in the drama classes had been practicing the skits that were performed last week in class. Given the nature of those skits, was this a good use of instructional time? How did the skits support the class curriculum? What curriculum materials were used to support these skits? In addition, students were given the opportunity to miss their regularly scheduled class to attend the drama performance. As reported in The Dispatch, about 1,000 students missed instructional time in another class to watch their classmates perform.
In a recently published article by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. titled “Land of the Second-Rate Education,” he offers the following response to those who lament the outsourcing of jobs to India: “Bolster our second-rate education system.” His proof comes from many sources, including an international survey called Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which found that students from the United States ranked 19th, just after Latvia. The American Diploma Project, a study released by three education policy organizations, states, “For too many graduates, the American high school diploma signifies only a broken promise.”
This has nothing to do with Gilroy High School’s Theatre Department and everything to do with Gilroy High School’s Theatre Department. How many more examples do we need? How many more jobs need to be lost to better educated people in other countries? How many more studies have to be done? How many more Position Papers need to be written?
Gilroy Unified School District School Board: CAN YOU HEAR US NOW?
Rhoda Bress, Bob Heisey, Denise Apuzzo, Pam Wilson, Jackie Stevens and Mark Zappa, Gilroy, for The Alliance For Academic Excellence
Submitted Thursday, Feb. 12 to ed****@****ic.com
