Dear Editor:
School board members are called
”
trustees
”
for a reason. These elected community representatives are
responsible for a trust whose beneficiaries are the students and
whose primary obligation is to ensure that all students
‚ academic needs are identified and met.
Dear Editor:
School board members are called “trustees” for a reason. These elected community representatives are responsible for a trust whose beneficiaries are the students and whose primary obligation is to ensure that all students‚ academic needs are identified and met.
We ask the Gilroy Unified School District School Board the following question: Whose needs were being served by the firing of Kristen Porter? The students or the administration that she openly criticized and challenged to provide answers to her questions about personnel decisions?
Was there an important message intended for students on the day security was brought on campus and Ms. Porter was threatened with arrest by the police unless she left immediately? Or was the message for teachers and staff who had to witness and hear about her humiliation? Don’t speak up or this could happen to you, too.
Was there a good civics lesson taught to the GHS community when Board President Jaime Rosso did not give an accurate report of the board vote on the issue, thus implying that there could be no question that what she did was so obviously egregious that no one dissented?
As members of the GUSD community, we are ashamed that this district treated a teacher, who clearly was not a threat to her students, so callously. No consideration was given to Ms. Porter’s well being the morning she was fired, and no prior arrangements had been made for her. Assistant Superintendent Linda Piceno’s statement that “we wanted to preserve her dignity” is beyond belief. Jeepers! If this is how this district defines dignified treatment, we would hate to see how it would treat someone disrespectfully.
This current school board’s agenda has been full this past year with all kinds of controversial matters related to Gilroy High School, from numerous, questionable personnel decisions to core reading lists to weighted GPAs to the Reading Literature Advisory Group. In January, The Alliance For Academic Excellence presented to the Board a Position Paper listing nine key issues at the high school, including the same personnel issues Ms. Porter questioned in her speech, that required board attention and action. With all this controversy and attention, it is beyond reason that the school board would not scrutinize every decision and would not want every fact verified that came from Gilroy High School’s administration.
Yet, Trustee Bob Kraemer states, when questioned about the decision to fire Ms. Porter, that he feels, “… very comfortable with our administrative team managing the district and providing to the board the information we need to make decisions.” Well, we feel very uncomfortable with board members that rubber stamp administration decisions. We believe that the public that elected them to provide oversight, leadership and direction is not being properly served.
The Board is correct in keeping individual personnel decisions private, but the public has a right to know what objective criteria are used in making personnel decisions and how those criteria support a district‚s educational philosophy. When teachers like Kristen Porter are told they are not a “good fit” for the district, the community needs to know what GUSD considers a “good fit” and what it doesn’t. Just as important, a teacher needs to have that information prior to taking a position in order to understand what the expectations are and what he/she will be judged upon come evaluation time.
In this very appalling story, there are some heroes and heroines that need to be acknowledged. Board Trustee Tom Bundros could not and did not vote for Kristen’s dismissal because he refused to make a decision without enough evidence to support it. He is to be applauded for his integrity and reason. One can imagine a scenario that after studying all the evidence, questioning Assistant Principal Joni Madolora, who is responsible for reviews in the English department, and interviewing Ms. Porter to get her side of the story, that the Board could conceivably come to the same conclusion it came to the other night, or perhaps not. The entire board, not just Mr. Bundros, should have felt an obligation to do all that and even more before making a decision that could ruin someone’s career.
Michelle Nelson, president of the Gilroy Teachers Association responded to a teacher in need on the day Kristen was released. Mark Rose, GHS English teacher and president of Porter’s union, the Gilroy Federation of Teachers, is also to be highly commended for his handling of the situation and for his comments which seem so perfect for a public that is trying to understand what has happened and trying to keep faith in this district. Both Ms. Nelson’s and Mr. Rose’s words and actions have added dignity to what otherwise is one of the most sordid events in GUSD history.
And finally, we wish to commend Kristen Porter for standing up for what she believes, demanding explanations, and asking the School Board to be accountable. With all the interest in the circumstances of her firing, we must not forget that the still unanswered question is why Ms. Porter was being let go in the first place. In an attempt to find an explanation, she asked the School Board some very thoughtful and legitimate questions. The Board’s responsibility is to provide answers to those questions, and we insist that it do so.
Denise Apuzzo, Robert Bickle, Martin Bress, Rhoda Bress, Bob Heisey, Kim Lemos, Mary Meier, Jane Singleton, Jackie Stevens, Pam Wilson, Mark Zappa and Sandi Zappa for The Alliance For Academic Excellence
Submitted Thursday, March 25 to ed****@ga****.com
