GILROY—On the heels of a co-founding teacher’s resignation, unhappy parents at Gilroy’s only charter school want its director fired and have asked the city’s public school board to look into alleged irregularities and failures at the four-year-old academic powerhouse.
Citing a “pattern of mismanagement” and a host of other issues, 17 parents in a May 21 letter to Gilroy Unified School District Superintendent Debbie Flores requested a public forum to air concerns about Navigator Schools and its leadership and for GUSD trustees to explore the charter’s future.
GUSD approved formation of the Navigator’s Gilroy Prep School four years ago and has the power to revoke its charter to operate in the district.
Number one on the letter writers’ must-do list is the ouster of Navigator’s executive director, James Dent, according to the letter, signed by Dr. Sonya Woolsey on behalf of the others.
“The Executive Director has demonstrated a very clear pattern of retaliatory behavior by neutralizing or removing any person who does not agree with his actions,” the 12-page letter reads in part.
It continues, “…he is no less than a bully who belittles and demeans anyone with the audacity to question his plans.”
The GUSD board was scheduled to discuss the problems at Navigator in closed session at their Thursday meeting.
“…the nature and volume of the complaints we have been getting exposes the District to potential liability and that is what we will be discussing (in closed session),” according to school superintendent Debbie Flores.
She said on said Wednesday that the district has met with Navigator’s leadership to go over concerns in letters she received from parents in April. More discussion is needed in light of the new letter from Woolsey, she said.
The district’s oversight is limited to financial and education matters, personal and other issues are the purview of the Navigator board, she said.
After exploring the issues, and possibly hosting a public forum, GUSD will send a letter to Navigator about its finding, she said.
Dent and Navigator’s board have been criticized publically before, but the most recent attacks follow the May 13 resignation of Karen Humber, one of three teachers who founded the charter, which now includes Gilroy Prep and Hollister Prep, both elementary schools with stellar academic credentials.
Her resignation letter reads, in part, “…our vision of creating an exemplary, replicable special education model committed to inclusion has not been supported by management. In light of the current and on-going climate, I believe I am no longer able to have an effective impact here at Navigator.”
On Wednesday, she told the Dispatch that it was the lack of “management and leadership” that caused her resignation.
And although she said the failures are “Navigator-wide, organizationally,” she said the system’s flaws do not include in the special education area, her specialty. Her last day is June 12.
Humber’s sentiments were echoed during a Tuesday evening parent meeting at Gilroy Prep that lasted more than two hours and during which the school’s leadership also had defenders among the more than 50 parents and staff that attended.
And in spite of the swirl of controversy and demands for management changes, all agreed the schools’ academics and teaching staff are outstanding—a fact underscored by test scores that consistently rank among the state’s highest.
At the meeting, critics called the schools’ management fundamentally flawed and pointing to Dent as the reason.
Navigator parent and former board member James Gargiulo at the meeting called Dent, “unethical and dishonest” and accused him of lying, of squashing dissent and the free speech of teachers by ordering staff not to talk to GUSD about the schools’ problems.
He also resurrected charges that Dent hired his own wife without telling the board and when his action was discovered the board ordered her dismissed.
Dent several weeks ago admitted to hiring his wife and said it was not a good decision. He also vowed to repay the money she earned.
Gargiulo Tuesday challenged him to follow though on that promise, but Dent did not reply.
“The solution is for you to be fired…you should have been fired a long time ago,” he told Dent, who sat quietly and listened.
One parent, however, called Navigator the “best school I have been to,” and expressed shock at what has transpired. Rather than attack Dent, she told Gargiulo, “instead maybe support him; you have a personal thing against him, it’s obvious.”
Gargiulo, who once sought but was not hired for the job Dent has, denied it was personal and said it’s about how Navigator is managed and its spending priorities.
He said he would rather see the school closed than continue under Dent’s control. “I don’t see a solution that does not include replacing the management,” he said, adding he does not want the school to close.
For his part, Dent said he was “sorry” for some of the failures of the past and attributed them to growing pains. He said new hires will help resolve the management issues that have arisen with fast growth.
“We are cleaning up what we were not as good at in the beginning,” he said. “We were trying to do too much. Now we have great schools and a great, talented” staff.
There we calls at the meeting for less divisiveness, for unity and for, as one man put it, “A second chance” to get things right.
Spanish-speaking parents said they feel left out of school matters, largely because the school lacks a real translator and bilingual teachers, although Dent speaks Spanish.
Amidst the charges and defenses, Sharon Waller, one of the founders and a teacher and administrator, called Navigator “Beautiful” and said she was “heartbroken” by Humber’s resignation.
“There are problems,” she said, “Things that have not worked out well, but I feel very confident we will work out the problems.”
Other issues raised by critics included finances, the lack of a voice for parents, the lack of supplies, spending priorities that don’t put kids first, that parents cannot vote for board members, the departure of special education staff, low moral, the possible violations of wage and hour laws and discrimination in hiring.
One person claimed that the school’s management discriminates against older teachers and refuses to hire them, which is illegal.
A parent club member said Navigator’s management explained its hiring practices relative to older teachers this way: “If they (applicants) are old, they can’t be molded.”
She also said parents have no say in school matters and are relegated to “trite” tasks and involvement.
Dent defended the school’s management and said a soon-to-be completed audit by GUSD “…did not find very much (wrong) at all”.
In spite of the discord and controversy, no one at the meeting called for Navigator’s closing, and some suggested that whatever the problem, putting an end to Navigator would be much worse for the kids.
“God help us all if this school closes,” said parent Scott Parson, whose wife works at Navigator and who described himself as a friend of Dent’s.
