‘My daughter’s education won’t be improved by her principal’s blackberry or driving stipend’

Dear Editor,
I listened to Gilroy School Trustee Tom Bundros’ speech about
the difficult choices we must make to balance the GUSD budget and I
was alarmed and dismayed.
What I heard him saying was the board is willing to make the big
cuts that are going to harm my children’s education, but not the
little cuts that
– while they might not save jobs, decrease class sizes or
balance the budget – could make a lot of difference.
‘My daughter’s education won’t be improved by her principal’s blackberry or driving stipend’

Dear Editor, 

I listened to Gilroy School Trustee Tom Bundros’ speech about the difficult choices we must make to balance the GUSD budget and I was alarmed and dismayed.

What I heard him saying was the board is willing to make the big cuts that are going to harm my children’s education, but not the little cuts that – while they might not save jobs, decrease class sizes or balance the budget – could make a lot of difference.

I have a daughter beginning school next year. What I heard the board say is that she’ll have 30 kids in her kindergarten class, instead of 20, which means less time with her teacher, but that principals can’t do without a district-funded Blackberry. She’ll have fewer days in school, which translates into less time to learn, but administrators and superintendents don’t want to get rid of their driving stipend in exchange for a more fair way of calculating how much they drive.  

My daughter and her classmates will have to do without a librarian, PE teacher, music teacher, media professional, aide, and intervention teacher, but people in the upper echelons of the school district can’t live without perks.

I am fully aware that our district is in a crisis – whether it is $3 million or $7 million, big cuts are going to have to be made. But the cuts that are going to have a significant impact on my daughter would be a lot more palatable if I knew that others were doing without perks. Those kinds of cuts might not add up to the millions of dollars that the district needs to save, but they are hugely symbolic. And, every little bit does help.

I also have a daughter in first grade this year. Even though she is only 6 years old, she can tell you that 100 + 100 = 200, and 200 + 200 = 400, and 400 + 400 = 800. When you add up a lot of little numbers, eventually you have a big number. And that big number might mean you have enough to perhaps save a job or lower class sizes a tiny bit.

Please don’t tell parents that the small changes don’t matter. Not when our kids are having to deal with the BIG changes. Before you make cuts that harm our children’s education, please look under every rock and stone and in every nook and cranny and get rid of every little bit of waste. After all, my daughter’s education won’t be improved by her principal’s blackberry or driving stipend. Small changes really do matter!!

Travis Finucane, Gilroy

The Golden Quill is awarded occasionally for a well-written letter.

Golden Quill for a poorly

composed letter that featured a misspelling in the headline?

Dear Editor,

Do the editors even read the letters submitted to the Dispatch? The recent Golden Quill award winner in last Friday’s edition started out with a misspelled word in the title and went downhill from there. 

Without comment on the content, I cannot remember a letter as poorly composed as Mr. Langdon’s award winning missive.

Do your staff a favor and have them present this letter to any English teacher in the local high schools and ask for a grammar assessment. It would do them a world of good.

Allan Lazarus, Gilroy

It’s time to shut down the RDA and stop the waste of precious tax dollars on dubious projects

Dear Editor,

There are logical arguments on either side of this issue regarding the benefits of the (Santa Teresa Boulevard) bypass. However, it really comes down to money and in this case that’s $17 million that is going to be spent by the Redevelopment Agency (that’s the agency that supposed to fight blight and spur economic development).

This is a good example of RDA irresponsibly spending tax dollars on a questionable project that does not meet that criteria.

All the while our schools are crumbling, teachers are being given pink slips, class sizes are increasing, graffiti is rampant, crime is on the rise and our reserves are being depleted to balance the budget. How can RDA justify spending $17 million on a road extension in this economy? Enough is enough, and it’s time to shut down the RDA so they can no longer divert tax dollars from schools and public safety to wasteful projects like this.

David R. Frazer, Morgan Hill

Cost of high speed rail to local government will be tremendous

Dear Editor,

The voters asked for self-sufficient high speed rail, not taxpayer subsidized transportation requiring hundreds of billions for construction, and billions annually for operations, like a super-sized Amtrak.

Shifting the financial burdens from the state to local governments to build and operate this Frankenstein will be worse than if they forced local government to pay for Amtrak and Caltrain and VTA Lite Rail boondoggles combined by factors of 10.

Joseph P. Thompson, Gilroy