From accountability to field trips, diversity was present in
answers given at televised forum
Gilroy – If any parity existed between the five individuals battling for a seat on the Gilroy Unified School District board it all but disappeared during Tuesday’s forum where candidates eagerly expressed their divergent views on an assortment of education issues.
During the forum – sponsored by this newspaper and broadcast live from Gavilan College by the local nonprofit media center Community Media Access Partnership – members of the Dispatch editorial board posed questions to each of the five candidates.
Once the candidate – Ardy Ghoreishi, Francisco Dominguez, Tom Bundros, Denise Apuzzo and Javier Aguirre are all vying for one of four seats – had finished his or her response, another individual was granted the opportunity to rebut or comment.
Apuzzo used the format to her advantage disputing other candidate’s answers on a gamut of issues from the way the district’s being run to the unacceptable test scores maintained by most of Gilroy’s schools.
When asked to list the district’s under-performing schools, Francisco Dominguez paused and then named Brownell Middle, Gilroy High and Las Animas Elementary schools and said he couldn’t remember the others. Brownell and GHS did fail to meet federal standards but Rucker and Eliot elementary and South Valley Middle schools also wear the Program Improvement label.
When the floor was turned over to Apuzzo, the mother of three simply said that only one of GUSD’s 13 schools has managed to hit the state’s Academic Performance target of 800, making every public school in Gilroy low-performing except Luigi Aprea Elementary School.
Later in the evening Apuzzo reiterated her position, pointing out that the district has basically become accustomed to the status quo.
“We started out so low at some schools that we tend to celebrate 130 point gains,” she said.
And when Dispatch editorial boardmember Lisa Pampuch asked her to name the district’s single biggest weakness, Apuzzo quipped “that our students aren’t performing where they should be.”
A few questions referenced the issue of merit pay, whether candidates agree that changing the salary schedule system would alleviate a teacher shortage and improve the overall quality of education.
Ghoreishi, who’s wife is a teacher at Las Animas, said he doesn’t believe in merit pay. But Bundros, one of the incumbents running for reelection, said he agrees with it and would even like to consider introducing such a system to the superintendent’s office.
Dominguez, who served two terms on the Oxnard School District and one on the Franklin-McKinley School District board in San Jose, said he does support the concept.
“I do believe in the merit pay system,” he said, adding that the district has a difficult time filling vacant math teacher slots. “I think that’s what’s necessary to make it happen.”
Aguirre was asked to explain the district’s accountability plan, a 78-page document that details the district’s handicaps and what must be done to improve student performance. The trustee, who was appointed to the board in December to finish up the term of the late TJ Owens, said the plan is in its “infancy period,” and that the board is considering drawing up its own accountability map.
Bundros, who’s finishing up his first term on the school board and is currently the vice president, explained that Gilroy High School is a “low-performing school,” when asked to discuss the district’s low proficiency rates. He pointed out that elementary schools have exhibited some improvement but that scores tend to flatten by middle school and drop even more by high school.
Bundros also was asked if he stands by his controversial decision on the GHS cheerleadering team field trip to Hawaii to the National Football League’s Pro Bowl game.
“I believe I did the right thing,” he said, pointing out that instructional time is not valued like it should be in the community. “I’m trying to change the culture (in this district).”
The teens will head to Honolulu in February despite Bundros’ “no” vote since four board members voted in favor of the trip.
When the topic of parent involvement surfaced Ghoreishi, who has spent a good deal of his campaign emphasizing the value of parent volunteers, said the district needs to form a better partnership between parents and its employees.
For Ben Anderson, one of the few audience members at the forum, the evening struck a chord.
When the Dispatch columnist entered the studio at Gavilan College he was set on casting votes for Aguirre, Apuzzo, Dominguez and Ghoreishi. He had decided that it was time for Bundros to go.
But the responses that passed through Dominguez’s lips and the answers given by the incumbent convinced him that he’d made the wrong decision.
“He (Dominguez) spoke in a very, very lofty issues-type of response,” Anderson said. “I didn’t get any nitty-gritty out of him. To be honest he sounded like a politician and didn’t sound like a school board trustee.”
Yet, Anderson was impressed with Bundros’ responses and liked that he appears to be spearheading an effort to improve communication within the district.
“I got turned around on Bundros and I got to be honest, I wasn’t expecting that at all,” he said.
