The future of Gilroy High girls’ basketball coach Susan Shapiro
is still up in the air.
GILROY – The future of Gilroy High girls’ basketball coach Susan Shapiro is still up in the air.
Shapiro’s job was made available by an inner-district memo last week, but after returning to town last weekend with eight players following a team camp at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the coach said anything is possible, such as returning to lead the Mustangs in 2009-10.
GHS Athletic Director Jack Daley confirmed that Superintendent Debbie Flores sent a letter to Shapiro letting the coach know her contract with the school would not be renewed following two Gilroy Unified School District investigations that spanned seven months and cost more than $25,000. However, Shapiro seemed to still be holding out hope when reached by phone Thursday.
“We’ll have to certainly see what happens in Gilroy,” Shapiro said.
The coach would not clarify how she and the district decided to part ways.
“Because of some things that are going on right now, I’m not at liberty to say,” she said.
Behind-the-scenes efforts to keep Shapiro in place as coach are being made by trustee Fred Tovar, Daley said.
“After Susan got the letter from the Superintendent, and she was not going to be brought back, we did post the position in-house. Then I got an e-mail from Susan and a phone call saying that one of the members of the board was looking into the situation,” Daley said. “I really don’t know what role the one board member intends on playing in it.”
Tovar did not respond to messages.
Ed and Lisa Foster – parents of Gilroy High basketball player Lindsey Foster – filed complaints with the district on Feb. 6 and May 11 seeking Shapiro’s ouster. The first complaint included claims of religious discrimination and harassment, while the second focused on retaliation by Shapiro for the first complaint. Tina Steele, mother of GHS player Laura Steele, filed a complaint with the district similar to the Foster’s second complaint, which stated Shapiro planned on cutting both players from next year’s team.
The district concluded that Shapiro “more likely than not” did say she would cut the players to other “district personnel,” but retaliation was not present due to a lack of follow-through. Shapiro was cleared of religious discrimination or harassment following the first investigation.
The Fosters seem intent on continuing their pursuit of a broader resolution by the district. The Fosters’ attorney, Heather Ledgerwood, did not return a message seeking comment Thursday, but Ledgerwood’s comments last week did leave open the door for a lawsuit against the district.
“At this point, we haven’t made a decision on that. I guess that’s kind of down the road,” Ledgerwood said.
Ledgerwood did confirm the Fosters would be filing a second appeal to the California Department of Education. The first appeal came on the heels of the original district investigation’s conclusions.
Shapiro said that during the team’s trip to UNLV, she was told by several players that their morale been damaged to the point that some are considering not playing for GHS next season. A contentious debate taking place online in the Gilroy Dispatch comments section under previous articles about the matter has featured players, players’ parents, Gary Cates – Shapiro’s husband – and trustee Denise Apuzzo, among others.
“I did tell the [players] to stop (commenting), but I have three kids and they hardly listen to me – and I’m their mom,” Shapiro said. “They feel jilted. They feel like they had something taken.”
Regardless of whether or not Shapiro returns as coach, Daley said plenty of mending will need to be done before next season.
“There are a lot of really good girls who are playing basketball and they need to rally around one another,” he said.
Daley added that he would prefer to have a coach in place before the start of the next school year.
