GILROY
– An offshoot group of the Alliance for Academic Excellence,
which battled last year to reinstate honors courses at Gilroy High,
announced last week it will form an alumni association for the
school.
GILROY – An offshoot group of the Alliance for Academic Excellence, which battled last year to reinstate honors courses at Gilroy High, announced last week it will form an alumni association for the school.
The Mustang Pride Committee, a group of parents and educators working to instill community and school pride at the high school, is asking interested GHS alumni to attend a March 26 meeting. The group is looking to generate a list of alumni and ideas for supporting the students, faculty and alumni of Gilroy High.
The session will be held in the GHS library at 7 p.m.
“An association like this is long overdue,” said co-organizer Rhoda Bress. “It’s a positive thing to have that connection in your life.”
Bress and fellow co-organizer Jackie Stevens believe step one for the alumni association would be to start a database of alumni that includes their current profession and contact information. The database could help, for instance, college students find fellow GHS alumni in their field of choice who could provide guidance.
“The possibilities are endless, but we want to see where the interest is,” Bress said.
A Gilroy High School Alumni Association would be the first of its kind. GHS has booster clubs and a parents club to support particular programs on campus and better disseminate information to parents. The school’s graduates have also organized many class reunions for particular classes, but there isn’t any group that provides support to both existing students and graduates.
The alumni association could, if the new group chooses, honor an alumnus of the year, establish a scholarship fund and hold functions allowing alumni to better network with one another.
“What better community than Gilroy to have a group like this,” Stevens said. “Gilroy has a great reputation for community support and involvement.”
Stevens and Bress believe now is as good a time as ever to begin an alumni group. Both women are active GHS parents. They say there is a new sense of unity in the district and at the high school as it enters its 25th year at the 10th and Princevalle streets campus.
“I think parents have noticed the district and the high school are listening to them now,” Stevens said. “There used to be a feeling that administrators had their own ideas for doing things and parent opinion was just kind of in the way. It’s not like that anymore.”
In November, Gilroy Unified School District received a vote of confidence from the community when voters passed a $69 million school facilities bond. In January, the high school felt a boost from the community when parents and prospective freshman students packed the GHS theater to learn more about the high school.
The information session gave current students a chance to speak about their experiences at GHS. Performances by the band and choir also let students show off talents nourished at the high school. Many parents who were undecided about sending their children to the high school left the event with plans to enroll their kids at GHS.
“Since that day we’ve been coming up with all sorts of ideas to draw on the support and pride of this community,” Bress said. “We quickly realized we needed more manpower, more income to make them happen.”
For more information, contact Jackie Stevens at 848-3922 or Rhoda Bress at 848-5870.
