Gilroy
– Rhoda Bress wants to slice through the layers of the Gilroy
Unified School District and bring the focus back to where she
thinks it belongs: the classroom.
Gilroy – Rhoda Bress wants to slice through the layers of the Gilroy Unified School District and bring the focus back to where she thinks it belongs: the classroom.
Bress, the mother of three Gilroy High School graduates and a son currently enrolled in the high school, said there is “an enormous gap” between what parents and teachers expect from the district and what’s being delivered.
And there is a similar disconnect between what’s decided in the board room and what’s being taught in the classroom, she said. As a result, the district’s reputation has plummeted, she said, and teachers don’t want to work in Gilroy.
“Teachers aren’t given the respect they deserve, and they’re the heart of the schools,” Bress said. “I’ve talked to teachers up in San Jose who say they’d never work for Gilroy Unified.”
But Bress has faith that with enough diligence, the district can come out of its slump and see revival.
“The public education system opens doors. It’s an institution with incredible strengths,” she said.
Bress called the district’s Accountability Task Force “a huge distraction,” mainly because it doesn’t translate into real changes in how the students are performing, she said. Additionally, serving on the task force takes away time that could be spent doing other things such as teaching, she said.
According to Bress, everyone involved in the district – students, parents, teachers, the board and administration – should share accountability, as each party plays a crucial role in ensuring the district’s well being.
Parents have the responsibility to actively involve themselves in their children’s education, which includes providing a healthy learning environment at home and having a say in what’s being taught in the classroom, Bress said.
In turn, teachers have a responsibility to communicate with parents to let them know how their child is performing from the very beginning of the year, she said.
The school board and administration should take responsibility for what’s happening in the schools, Bress said.
“We need someone to step up and say, ‘We own these test scores. We own the 30-percent proficiency rate. We own what happened to Kristin Porter,'” Bress said. Porter was dismissed by the district this spring and told she was not a good fit.
The board also has a responsibility to act as the “ultimate watchdog” of the district, Bress said, which includes making sure teachers are judged by objective criteria.
Although teachers make up the core of the district, they’re often taken for granted and not provided the tools they need to do their jobs, Bress said. Part of the problem is a lack of communication within the district, Bress said, and establishing a regular teacher summit, for example, could help foster better communication.
“We’re giving teachers the tools to make a VW Bug, then expecting them to make a Mercedes,” she said.
One tool that teachers need is authority in the classroom to teach how they see fit, Bress said.
“What may work for one teacher won’t always work for another,” she said. “We need to look at how the children are learning the best, and I think we need to give the power back to the teachers. They’re the professionals we hired to do this job.”
Regardless of teaching styles or the different needs of students, Bress said, the basic formula for education remains the same: a safe environment, rich curriculum, high-quality instructional material and qualified teachers. The important thing, Bress said, is making sure policies created by the board directly affect what students are learning.
“We need to make sure what’s being created in the board room is being translated into the classroom,” she said. “We bring in all these think tanks and gurus, but they don’t have the answers. We have the answers.”
