Gilroy
– When students struggling to break free of drug dependence or
suicidal urges go looking for help, they could find an empty office
next year.
Gilroy – When students struggling to break free of drug dependence or suicidal urges go looking for help, they could find an empty office next year.
Proposed budget cuts at the county level could eliminate School Link Services, a nonprofit that provides the equivalent of 8.5 counselors, social workers and attendance liaisons at five district schools to help some of the most at-risk kids and their parents. The funding cuts could eliminate both the first and last means of support for schools and students dealing with emotional and behavioral problems.
While the district plans on taking a petition to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, the county is facing a $238 million deficit. As supervisors have already received appeals from numerous nonprofits and there is a protest scheduled for today, the Gilroy Unified School District will likely see the cuts come to pass, said trustee Denise Apuzzo.
“This really worries me,” she added.
High School Lows
Under proposed cuts, Gilroy High School would lose two full-time social workers and one part-time counselor. One counselor would remain, dividing his time between there and Mount Madonna Continuation High School.
Students suffering the most from the cuts would be the kids most in need, said Apuzzo.
“It could be border-line suicide, kids that have been kicked out of their house, things like that,” she said.
As the employees provide support for a range of issues, the loss of services would affect all types of students, said Maricela Bravo, one of the school’s social workers. She and her colleagues counsel nearly a quarter of the high school’s approximately 2,400 students.
“It can be that they’re just having a difficult day, that they got into a fight with their parents, that they got into a conflict with a teacher or a student to they’re feeling suicidal,” she said.
The Loss is Also Elementary
Brownell Middle School and Eliot, El Roble and Glen View elementary schools would also suffer from the proposed cuts as they receive the equivalent of six full-time employees from the nonprofit.
Eliot’s attendance liaison, Margarita Orozco, is among those waiting to hear whether she will be returning next year. As a Spanish speaker in a school where about 25 percent of the staff speaks Spanish but 92 percent of the families speak only Spanish, she is in many ways the face of the school. If a student does not come to class or a parent misses a conference with a teacher, Orozco drives out to the house to find the family and discuss the problem. While there, she also dispenses parenting advice, which helps to keep kids in school and reduce behavioral problems.
This personal connection with the families is an important part of keeping students in the system and helping them to succeed, said trustee Pat Midtgaard.
If the attendance liaison position is cut and these personal meetings disappear, attendance will drop, teachers will have more behavioral problems and contacting parents will be difficult, said Orozco.
“It’s going to be chaos,” she said. “Its’ going to tough for the kids, it’s going to be tough for the teachers.”
