GILROY
– Despite a recent to-do surrounding allegations about a teacher
fired from Gilroy Unified School District, parent and district
employee Rob van Herk says he plans to keep his
”
blog
”
running, for now.
GILROY – Despite a recent to-do surrounding allegations about a teacher fired from Gilroy Unified School District, parent and district employee Rob van Herk says he plans to keep his “blog” running, for now.
Van Herk, GUSD’s Information Technology Manager, said he is weighing the pros and cons of maintaining his personal Web log after scrutiny of a posting that questioned the after-school activities of former Gilroy High School English teacher Kristen Porter.
“At the moment I still think it serves a purpose,” he said. “I think if you look at the responses to (a current) GATE and Rucker posting, I think that shows how helpful the blog can be, where five or six people respond and there is some back and forth.”
A posting on van Herk’s Gilroy schools-related blog two weeks ago, since removed, linked to a Web page that associated Porter with ScripTease, a “stripping improvisational comedy troupe” based in Santa Cruz.
Superintendent Edwin Diaz said the district was unaware of Porter’s association with the group until recently and that it is “pretty irrelevant. I’m still unclear what that comedy club actually does, so before I could comment on it I would have to have a better understanding of what they actually do there.
“We did not know of this information when we took action to release Ms. Porter, so it was not taken into any consideration,” Diaz said.
The public discussion of Porter’s personal life on and off the blog is frustrating, he said.
“The fact that this is a public debate, in my mind, is ridiculous, and I don’t want to spend any more time dealing with the issue,” Diaz said.
At issue is whether the blog could be a figurative attractive nuisance for GUSD, some trustees said, blurring the lines between official district communication and the opinions of a district employee. Others said it is possible to separate the two.
“The problem is, when you’re working for the district and you’re maintaining something like this, it does get confusing,” Board President Jaime Rosso said. “(Is he) speaking for the district, or who is he speaking (for), even though he does put in the disclaimers. We’re walking a fine line there.”
“He does announce district things, but the site is not connected with Gilroy Unified. … He always makes it very clear,” Trustee Jim Rogers said. “Rob is a very, very straightforward guy and has always made sure that people wouldn’t be misled, so I don’t have a problem with it, myself.”
When discussions turn to gossip that parents might share with one another is where Gilroy Federation of Teachers President Mark Rose draws the line.
“I have some real concerns,” he said. “It’s another opportunity for this gossip to have greater hang-time and validity because it’s published on a blog site.”
Given the popularity of the blog and van Herk’s related newsletter – which he says is e-mailed to hundreds of parents, community members and public officials – it is clearly filling in some communication gaps, trustees said.
“I think it’s doing the job: It’s putting out announcements and it’s getting the message out,” Rogers said.
Trustee TJ Owens said the blog may serve as a model for future district-endorsed communications.
“One of the problems we have with the district’s communication is our technology area … and I think we’ve seen an improvement since Rob’s been with the district,” he said.
Teachers union representatives are criticizing van Herk for allowing the posting by “Mike Samuels” of Hollister, who may or may not exist.
Rose said he viewed Samuels’ profile based on the e-mail provided with the blog posting and that it was a female living in New York.
“That raised a red flag,” Rose said. “I was concerned that not only is someone taking a quarter-truth and trying to inflame the public, and that was used as a news story, causing more stress and creating more of an ugliness in this city toward teachers that is not needed. And the more perplexing thing of all is, how did we get to this point with this teacher, whose only question is ‘Why?’ ”
Van Herk said he allowed the posting after confirming the e-mail address was valid, although efforts by himself, Rose and The Dispatch to get in touch with Samuels have gone unanswered.
“If I have to jump through too many hoops to make the blog a good vehicle for communication, then I have to consider taking it down,” van Herk said. “There are some technical possibilities of how you can confirm the identity of people, but the problem becomes, you are making it harder and harder for people to communicate.”
