District staff hope to have the new high school’s boundaries and
courses defined and approved by the board of trustees next fall,
staff said.
Gilroy – District staff hope to have the new high school’s boundaries and courses defined and approved by the board of trustees next fall, staff said.
At a meeting with the Gilroy Unified School District trustees, administrators outlined how they would delineate boundaries, choose courses and hire staff for Christopher High School – slated to open fall 2009. The process requires public input and honing plans for Gilroy High School.
“When you build a new high school, you actually build two high schools,” assistant superintendent of educational services Basha Millhollen said.
Because the district’s budget will not appreciably change when the new high school comes online, the number of staff assigned to the school will directly affect Gilroy High School.
The courses offered at the new school can determine how many staff members are needed, especially if the classes have low enrollment. Conversely, a cap on the number of teachers because of budget restrictions at the new school could control which courses are included.
Boundaries can affect both staff and courses because they control the number and demographics of students entering the school. As students of different ethnic and socioeconomic groups typically take different classes, the new high school’s attendance boundary will dictate what courses need to be offered.
The district must develop staffing strategies, course designs and boundaries in concert because they are interdependent and will affect how the district serves its high school students, staff and trustees said.
“What we want to do is be very careful that we don’t split the community by what we offer at each of these schools,” Millhollen said.
Trustees suggested multiple configurations for populating the new, 900-student high school. Options include admitting only freshman until the second phase is finished in about 2015 or building up with about 250 students per year during a four-year stretch.
If the district chooses the build-up option, the new high school will not dramatically relieve the overcrowding at Gilroy High School, where about 2,600 students now cram into facilities built for 1,800 students, trustee Denise Apuzzo said. However, admitting more students per year would result in overcrowding at the new high school, which will have a capacity of about 900 until the second phase’s completion, she added.
“From a boundary point of view, we’re really pigeon-holed,” she said.
Trustees deferred a decision on boundaries, choosing instead to approve a district boundary committee, which will garner input from teachers, district staff, parents and students. The committee, which is gathering members, will begin work in October and report final recommendations in September 2008.
“I want to be as inclusive as possible,” Superintendent Deborah Flores said of forming the committee. “I don’t want to leave anyone out.”
Trustees discussed dividing district high school students by offering different courses at each school. One district parent present warned this configuration reverted to a magnet school system, which the district moved away from earlier this decade.
In the end, there are only two choices, Millhollen said.
“Either we’re going to have a school based on boundaries or we’re going to have a school based on program,” she said.
District staff also revived a committee to finalize Gilroy High School graduation requirements. The committee will report recommendations to the board in November and a new committee will design courses of study for the new high school’s graduation requirements from January to August 2008.
The district will hire the new high school’s principal and secretary in July to help with the planning process.
However, to save money, the district will hold off hiring most staff for at least a year and will not hire teachers until March 2009.
The district has a lot of work to do so that the high school’s opening date is not delayed, Flores said.
“We’d like to have a lot of this in place by next fall,” she said. “Those are realistic timeline goals and we are going to do everything we can to meet those goals.”
Christopher Quirk covers education for the Dispatch. Contact him at 847-7240 or cq****@************ch.com.
