Hark! What have we here on the Gilroy education scene as
reported on the front page of last week’s Dispatch dated March 22?
Maybe a modern day tragic drama being played out at Gilroy High
School that could, well, in my mind be compared to a piece of
history from the life and times of Henry VIII, king of England in
jolly good years past.
Hark! What have we here on the Gilroy education scene as reported on the front page of last week’s Dispatch dated March 22? Maybe a modern day tragic drama being played out at Gilroy High School that could, well, in my mind be compared to a piece of history from the life and times of Henry VIII, king of England in jolly good years past.
I’ll develop my analogy by first introducing the characters and setting.
For my example, Gilroy High School can be compared to England and GHS Principal Bob Bravo can be compared to king Henry VIII. For the fair maidens, I’ll liken former English teach Kim Lemos to Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon. And I’ll compare former GHS teacher Kristen Porter to Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. So given this setting of the stage as it were, let’s now look at some situational similarities.
Henry VIII came to the throne on the crest of a wave of popularity and seemed the antithesis of his predecessor. So Bob Bravo came into “power” as principal of GHS on a similar wave of popularity. In fact The Dispatch had quite a bit of good stuff to say about Bravo’s elevation as principal.
In an article dated Nov. 25, 2002, staff writer Eric Leans wrote “Bravo, a Gilroy resident, was given the principal’s position last summer after an initial search for Gilroy High’s top post yielded no viable candidates, school district trustee Bob Kraemer explained.” And from the same article “I couldn’t be more proud and impressed with the job he’s doing. I’m impressed with the way he handles groups and I like his honesty,” Kraemer said.
Continuing from the same article “Things have a way of working out for me,” Bravo says. “When it comes to my career, I don’t have any long-term goal even though people are always asking me ‘What’s next?’ I play things by ear and take one step at a time.” So it seems Bravo could have been reechoing some words of Henry, who of course, not only took one step at a time, but one wife at a time. Henry proved to be a politician of exceptional cunning, and from what I read, I see Bravo exercising the same skills in the GHS environment.
As you may recall from history books, Henry had the heads of both Catherine and Anne involuntary placed in baskets to the joys of the common folk. After all, both were declared to be traitors to Henry’s goals and purposes. Likewise, in my analogy, king Bravo has rolled the job “heads” of both Kim Lemos and Kristen Porter placing them into the trash can of education careers at GHS.
Of course, Henry went on to separate the heads of more of his wives, so my question is: will king Bravo do the same with the careers of more capable teachers at GHS who, to their misfortune, will say the wrong thing in the wrong place, at the wrong time? Has this last firing created a spirit of fear and intimidation in the kingdom of GHS educators?
History shows that Henry’s problems with Catherine and Anne were really not their fault, but his fault. So will time also reveal that GHS administration’s problem with teachers Lemos and Porter was not valid, but in fact was the result of a bigger problem with Bob Bravo?
From what The Dispatch has written about student reaction in both termination cases, there were no problems with these two ladies.
Ending my analogy, I’ll now ask a curious question: reversing races, what if a Caucasian male principal (instead of a Hispanic male principal) would have fired Lemos and Porter had they been minority females? Would it still have happened? While my assumption is that both ladies are not minorities (from photos I’ve seen in The Dispatch), my point is that a host of civil rights groups would come to their defense and at the same time be after the white male principal’s head to roll. But, I doubt that will be the case here. I suspect that these ladies will not be defended with as much (if any) legal vigor because they are not minorities. Reverse discrimination in their firings? Was their right of free speech violated?
And finally, an appropriate quote for this tragic drama at GHS: “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires,” said William Arthur Ward. From what I’ve read in The Dispatch, it certainly appears that both these ladies were inspirational teachers. It’s too bad that GHS students have lost two such people. They’re the ones who ultimately pay the price for the administration’s political games.
