With a record number of students expected to swell Gilroy classrooms this year, school officials this week launched a citywide poster campaign aimed at getting every one of them to show up on the first day of classes, Aug. 16.
“What we typically see is 95 to 96 percent show up on the first day. Three to four percent don’t show up till the second week of school,” said Gilroy Unified School District Superintendent Debbie Flores.
“That impacts the child, what they have already missed. So we are really urging parents to send their children to school next Tuesday so they can get everything that is covered in that week and not be behind,” she said, adding, “what we’d really like to see is every student in school the first day.”
The district also loses about $40 per day per student in state funding when students miss school.
The attendance posters will be displayed in storefronts, on school grounds and elsewhere around the city, according to Flores.
The GUSD student population this year is projected to exceed 11,500 and could reach 11,600. That’s more than ever before, and within five to seven years the number is expected to be 12,000, Flores said.
The growth is being pushed by new housing developments in western and southern Gilroy, mostly in the areas served by Gilroy High School, Solorsano Middle School and Las Animas, Luigi Aprea, Rod Kelley and Glen View elementary schools.
And with home construction by the hundreds continuing apace in new subdivisions along Hecker Pass Highway and Santa Teresa Boulevard, student numbers will continue to swell, underscoring the need to increase classroom capacity for those neighborhoods, Flores said.
Those increases will come by way of a planned new elementary school, the top priority for the $170 million school bond measure approved June 7 by voters, and an expansion at Gilroy High School. Solorsano has room for 200 to 300 more students, according to Flores, and a new wing built at Las Animas School will help absorb the influx of new students.
For the coming session, GUSD hired four new principals and assigned an interim principal at Mt. Madonna High School. New principals will serve at South Valley and Brownell middle schools and Luigi Aprea and Rod Kelley elementary schools.
It’s the largest number of new principals she’s hired since starting in the district in 2007, Flores said.
“I am very excited, they are going to do a great job,” she said.
GUSD also hired 85 new teachers, up from last year’s 80, for a total of about 550. Some were hired to bolster the special education program, but most will replace teachers who retired or moved away.
Also, 25 new hires were made in the classified employee ranks, which includes janitorial and clerical staff, and in the paraprofessional staff, who work in classrooms.
Classes start at GUSD’s 15 campuses on Tuesday, Aug. 16.
In addition to GUSD’s regular public schools, student numbers are up at Gilroy Prep School, the district’s successful charter school that operates under the Navigator Schools banner, where classes start Wednesday, Aug. 17.
With the addition of a 7th grade to the previous K-6 range, the student population at GPS is at 480. The school adds a grade each year and is exploring high school grades in the future.
GPS also added two new classrooms for the new grade and hired four new teachers to add to its roster of two teachers and two small-group instructors per grade.
This year also sees the addition of a “robust enrichment” program that includes art, Spanish and LegoRobotics instruction, according to Kirsten Carr, director of community outreach for Navigator, with also operates Hollister Prep School in that city.
Navigator also has a new CEO, Kevin Sved. Founding CEO James Dent is the schools’ new chief academic officer.
“Our ability to focus on teacher coaching and professional development will only continue to grow and strengthen,” Carr said in an email. “That intense coaching leads to even stronger academic support for the classroom and success for our students.” Navigator’s test scores consistently are among the highest in the state.
