Your recent article finally sheds light on the drug situation in
our local schools and our community.
Dear Editor,
Your recent article finally sheds light on the drug situation in our local schools and our community. While this problem is not exclusive to Gilroy, Gilroy’s physical location makes our city more susceptible to drug availability because it is an ideal distribution point where drugs can easily flow either north and south or east and west.
It is not tough for our kids to get their hands on these drugs. What has been disappointing is the way the community has failed to properly address this issue. As the recent article pointed out, there is a huge discrepancy in how even our two local high schools address drug use. The new principal at Gilroy High School seems to be doing an excellent job in his first few months. He is paying attention and fixing problems that have been toxic for years. He may have been right to expel the student entangled in a drug event. In expelling the student he sent a powerful message, set an example for other students and created an appropriate message for the students: there are consequences for your actions and bad behavior will not be tolerated.
He may be the first principal in years to actually take the zero tolerance policy seriously.
Also, the other message sent was that students who show up for school have a right to an appropriate learning environment free from kids who are on or selling drugs.
Christopher High School has a logical rational for why they did not expel students in a similar situation. Perhaps the thought process is reasonable, however what is problematic at CHS is not the allowance for compassion, but the perception that consequences are selectively leveled. The students are under the impression that one of the students involved in the drug issue had already been granted an ability to play two sports, despite being below the minimum GPA requirement each time. So, continuing to play sports when the requirement wasn’t met simply enabled a situation to escalate to a drug violation. Then that student received the same consequence as students who had never been in trouble, academically or otherwise. Do we want to build strong sports programs at the expense of our integrity and erosion of our rules? What are we teaching through our examples and actions?
These and other issues serve as important messages for our kids as well. Only the message here is that leaders have too much “discretion” to selectively implement decisions that have a wide impact without oversight. Perhaps that is too much power to have at a site level in a public school system and perhaps the process to address these issues needs more balance and objectivity.
Are the adults in our community behaving badly? Is there too much potential for a double standard message to be sent to students? When our community sets standards and expectations, there needs to be room for compassion but not at the expense of transparency and an objective process that is accessible to all.
Dan Stevens, Gilroy
Dean of Discipline – whatever happened to the role of parents?
Dear Editor,
Regarding the reference to a new school district position in a recent article, whatever happened to the responsibility for parents to be “deans of discipline” for their children? Sounds more like a school Gestapo position.
James Fennell, Gilroy
Kind words for the professional story team from the Dispatch
Dear Editor,
Our family just wanted to drop you a note to thank your wonderful staff for taking time in writing a fantastic article March 2 on Nick and Steve Gibson.
We wanted to let you know how outstanding Sara Suddes and Lora Schraft were when they came to our home. These two individuals are a great asset to the Dispatch on many levels. They both demonstrated exceptional expertise in their own professions, but besides that, they were both extremely passionate and caring when interviewing our family.
Sara listened precisely to everything we said, and we are so appreciate of her attention to details. These two women are a fantastic representation of Gilroy and most of all of your paper.
We are sure that anyone they come in contact with while they are reporting in the field will come away with a greater respect and admiration for the Dispatch because of their warm, professional attitudes. Gilroy should be honored to have them representing our city when they go to locations outside of our city limits. Whoever hired these two individuals should be commended.
We can’t thank Miss Suddes and Miss Schraft and yourself enough for everything all of you have done for Nick and our family.
Steve, Erin and Nick Gibson
