School board selects Javier Aguirre over Bob Heisey for seat
vacated by death of TJ Owens
Gilroy – English language learners and the needs of the Hispanic community appeared to be the main concerns of many locals who attended Monday’s late-night special meeting to select a new school board member.
After answering an array of questions, mainly about student performance in Gilroy and the achievement gap of ELL students, the Gilroy Unified School District board selected Javier Aguirre to serve the remainder of TJ Owens’ one-year term. Owens died unexpectedly in October and was serving as board president at the time.
Aguirre, 32, beat out former school board members Kai Lai and Bill Paterson and Bob Heisey, a parent who attends school board meetings on a regular basis.
Lai and Paterson were eliminated after the first round of questions from the public and the board.
Once the pool was narrowed to Heisey and Aguirre, the candidates were asked a different set of questions from the board and were read questions from the public.
Trustee Jaime Rosso said both candidates would have been good school board members. Still, Rosso said he decided to vote for Aguirre because he thinks the board needs a Spanish speaker and that he will be able to address the district’s achievement gap.
Trustees Rhoda Bress and Tom Bundros cast their votes for Heisey. The two members said that they were impressed with his regular attendance at meetings, his answers to the questions and his involvement with the district and the community.
Trustees David McRae and Pat Midtgaard voted for Aguirre and Jim Rogers was the swing vote.
Aguirre was born and raised in Gilroy and serves as senior policy aide for Santa Clara County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado. He earned his bachelors from Stanford University and Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School. The Gilroy High School graduate has a newborn son and serves on the El Portal Charter School board.
After Heisey ran for the board in 2004, he continued attending meetings and has remained active in the school district. He has a son who attends GHS and another son who graduated from GHS and attends University of California, Davis.
Student performance, particularly the district’s low scores in math, the Measure I funding gap and the district’s high number of English language learners were the recurring themes of most of the questions peppered at candidates during the meeting.
The four candidates were initially asked a series of questions by the board members taken from the list of 10 that the candidates had answered as part of the application process.
One of the first questions posed to all four board members addressed the Measure I shortfall.
Aguirre said the district needs to make sure the new high school is built and that the bond promises are carried out. Heisey said the administration is doing a good job decreasing the deficit but he not sure what the answer is.
“I guess nobody else has answers to the question because I didn’t hear one the other night at the meeting,” he said to laughter from the audience.
When the candidate pool was narrowed down to Aguirre and Heisey, the questions became a bit more spicy. One pulled from the high stack of public questions asked Heisey if he thinks the board should more accurately reflect the majority Hispanic population of Gilroy.
Heisey said he doesn’t think the board should be divided by ethnicity and that the GUSD educational issues affect all students.
Aguirre was asked to talk about how many board meetings he has attended in the past year. The Gilroy native said he has attended a few meetings but added that he didn’t that makes him any less qualified.
When asked if he thinks his ethnicity played an important role in the board’s decision and the community’s support, Aguirre said his work in the public sector has taught him that race is not a defining factor.
“Work in government is not about whether you’re black or white,” he said. “It’s about helping everyone.”
Still, Aguirre said GUSD does have a 60 percent Hispanic population and the achievement gap needs to be addressed.
Initially, six locals stepped up to fill the vacant board seat. David Stiffler withdrew his application at the beginning of December and Brenda Jordan-Owens, Owens’ widow, dropped out late Friday.
The GUSD board will hold it’s regular board meeting on Thursday at 7:30pm.
