Let me attempt to reconstruct the torturous path that I’ve been
down while working to improve the academic program at Gilroy High
School.
Let me attempt to reconstruct the torturous path that I’ve been down while working to improve the academic program at Gilroy High School. I have discovered that the road for parents whose priority is academic rigor is a long and winding road; fraught with obstacles and roadblocks. Meanwhile, the road for parents whose top priority is ensuring that instructional materials reflect the ethnic makeup of Gilroy is a diamond lane that goes straight to the district office.
Today, I will recap a few of the obstacles. Lest you think that I have embarked upon this journey on a whim, let me assure you that I was following the advice of Superintendent Edwin Diaz. At the Nov. 7, 2002 School Board meeting, he spoke to parents regarding the Honors Program at Gilroy High School: “This is the first time when teachers and parents are sitting down and designing an instructional program. I hope we have more of this. We need parent voices in these decisions.”
I took this message to heart and signed on to work with the AP/Honors Advisory Group at Gilroy High. At the same board meeting, Assistant Superintendent Jackie Horejs reported to the School Board that the Honors/AP Advisory Group would be meeting on a quarterly basis through June of 2005.
Parents were eager to meet, eager to help design a better Honors/AP program. The AP/Honors Group met in June 2003. We looked at the data and surveys of the initial year of a ninth grade Honors Program which was expanding to include 10th grade for the 2003-2004 school year. We agreed to meet again in August. Then the wait began.
There was no resistance from the teachers that I could discern; in fact the teachers who attended our meetings were supportive of the group’s efforts. But the resistance from the administration was palpable.
Parents made numerous requests to start meeting on a regular basis and these requests were ignored. The first meeting of the Honors/AP group was on March 3, 2004; seven months into the school year and a full nine months since we had agreed to reconvene.
This hardly qualifies as a “quarterly” meeting. Because we had to play catch up, we met again in April. Parents suggested prerequisites for Honors and AP classes; we were helping to design the program as suggested by our superintendent. A number of dedicated parents expressed the willingness to put in the time and effort needed to examine every component of the classroom experience, from prerequisites to instructional materials to classroom assignment.
At the April meeting we set the agenda for the May meeting. One of the agenda items for the May meeting was teacher selection. Parents were rightly concerned that staff who are assigned to teach the AP classes be teachers who are capable of the rigor required, committed to ensuring that their students benefit from the class and pass the AP exam, and embrace the philosophy driving the Honors and AP program.
The May meeting evolved into what I now know to be “the recurring philosophical debate on what to do with the one student who receives a grade of D in trigonometry but still wishes to enroll in AP calculus.” Parents overwhelmingly believe that this student should not be eligible to enroll in AP calculus, but I’ve learned that this hypothetical student gets far more discussion than the 99 percent of students who don’t fill those shoes. The meeting ended with the issue of teacher placement for AP and Honors left unaddressed.
Parents came to the last AP/Honors Advisory meeting expecting to discuss all issues on the agenda. These parents are now in the position of having to make their voices a little louder and request yet another meeting. So far, the administration has refused. Who is allowing the administration to ignore a dedicated parent group? Recently, one group of community members didn’t get a book they liked on the core reading list. They were able to get an entire list of books approved for a pilot program within two weeks. These voices were acknowledged in record time.
Parents in the Honors/AP group are not going away. The agenda item is not going away. High School and district administrators need to understand that advocacy of a rigorous academic program is not a personal attack on their character. Public input on the Updated Strategic Plan documented the urgency of meeting the needs of high-achieving students. I’m certain that parents whose children are in the dual immersion program would never be dismissed as “difficult” because they advocate for a different academic program, but that is exactly what happens to AP/Honors parents. The fact is that employees of Gilroy Unified work for all the parents in the district, not just those who are easy to appease or share the same educational philosophy as Board President Jaime Rosso.
Having seen that some people are able to push the rapid response button, concerned AP/Honors parents will be taking our cue from them. We will not be ignored for nine months ever again. We requested a meeting before the end of the school year since the master schedule will need to be completed over the summer. School ends tomorrow and parents are still awaiting a response. We are now faced with another barricade on the long and winding road.
