Dear Editor,
I have been following the Dispatch’s coverage of the storm that
is brewing over the GUSD Board of Trustee selection with great
interest. After all the racism charges and political correctness
arguments subside, we as a community will be holding the same bag
of goods as we were prior to Mr. Aguirre’s placement on the Board.
We will still have, as the Board claims, a district-wide Hispanic
population that is performing measurably under that of other ethnic
groups.
Dear Editor,
I have been following the Dispatch’s coverage of the storm that is brewing over the GUSD Board of Trustee selection with great interest. After all the racism charges and political correctness arguments subside, we as a community will be holding the same bag of goods as we were prior to Mr. Aguirre’s placement on the Board. We will still have, as the Board claims, a district-wide Hispanic population that is performing measurably under that of other ethnic groups.
Does this board have any idea why nearly 1 out of 3 students of a specific ethnic group perform so poorly? Has this board paid anything other than lip-service to an effort to find out? We, as a community, have been saddled with a growing inequity, under-performing students, while our GUSD board avoids direct, straight-forward, and factual communication with the community and instead appears to enjoy dipping it’s toes into the water that breeds the racial divide that exists in this community.
The GUSD Board of Trustees appears to be comfortable as a reactionary entity, re: Dispatch “Board to Discuss Grad Issues” 12-24-05. The board is at best four years too late to do anything for the class of 2006. CASHEE was not designed yesterday, and was not a surprise to this board. The students that do not graduate with their class should receive a theoretical refund, as the Board dropped the ball in providing the means to obtain an education for the last four years.
This board has cultivated, through ignorance, inactivity, or indifference the conditions that have allowed Hispanic students to perform at a level nearly half that of other students district-wide.
It is unforgivable that a student in our community is forgotten and failed by this board. In his letter, “”Troubled by Outburst Following the Selection of New School Trustee”, Diaz plainly states he is a member of the Hispanic community: “Second, as a member of the Hispanic community, I am outraged by Mr. Heisey’s comment in Thursday’s Dispatch article stating, ‘I will never look at the Hispanic community the same after last night.'”
What does that mean? Does he hold the Hispanic community in less regard? What does it mean about his further interaction with Hispanic staff, parents and students?” While I applaud Mr. Diaz for finally expressing an opinion, why is our recently-bonused superintendent so clearly outraged at Bob Heisey for his remarks toward a member of the Hispanic community, yet is not angry at the parents of the under-performing children from that same community for allowing their children to forego their educations, remain truant, turn their backs on the school system and flaunt it in their daily attitude and actions and throw away their last opportunity to become upstanding productive members of THE community? Even as Mr. Diaz expresses his outrage, he furthers the divide by making a literal distinction between ‘his’ community and anyone else’s. Señor Diaz, we have ONE community.
We need all of GUSD’s students to be achievers, not under-performers. OUR community, yours, mine, his, hers, the neighbor’s, the mailman’s, community will not flourish until your school district gives us graduates that can read, write, utilize secondary education as a step beyond rather than a second chance at high school. We need graduates that can provide a skilled labor pool for the light industry our city needs to survive. We need graduates that have been nurtured by a combination of parents, community, and school officials to the point of yearning for additional education to give back to mankind as a whole.
We need graduates who have the ability to look at a possibly incendiary situation and examine the facts, rather than act using some street-born code of misplaced pride and equality. We do not need further divisions based on the color of person’s outsides; rather we need to be quite concerned with the color of their insides, especially the gray matter between their ears. This is what we need from your board, Superintendent Diaz. Stop the easy pickings. Stop the board from being the ignorant and divided body it has become.
Start earning the $100K+ and give us results, not bickering and crying about who said what. Counsel your board about how they say what they say. Talk to the community in metrics we understand, results. Tell us what is really broken, and what you need from us, THE community, to fix them.
Eliminate the evident division within your own Board through whatever methods necessary. Put the dunce cap, publicly, on a board member that is standing in the way of progress and repair of our broken school system in Gilroy. Draw the community behind you by working with us.
Ben Anderson, Gilroy
