Gilroy
– A group of parents is mobilizing to pump much-needed funds
into the school district’s program for their high-achieving
students.
OpenGATE, a group of parents whose children are in the Gifted
And Talented Education (GATE) program, plans to operate as a
non-profit, bringing in outside funding to support teachers
educating GATE-identified students.
Gilroy – A group of parents is mobilizing to pump much-needed funds into the school district’s program for their high-achieving students.
OpenGATE, a group of parents whose children are in the Gifted And Talented Education (GATE) program, plans to operate as a non-profit, bringing in outside funding to support teachers educating GATE-identified students.
“So far, we have a Web site and we have some ambition, but we don’t have any money yet,” said Bill Hudson, a GATE parent who is spearheading the group.
Hudson recently set up a Web site that serves as the group’s virtual hub, with answers to frequently-asked-questions, a calendar of GATE related events, and a link to join OpenGATE’s e-mail list.
Roughly a dozen parents are involved so far, Hudson said, and after several meetings they are seeking out the best way to officially become a non-profit so the money-raising can begin.
A second major focus of the group – communication – is the parents’ solution to what they have seen as a lack of discourse from the district when it comes to GATE.
The group wants to work closely with Gilroy Unified School District and be “dedicated to supporting, sustaining and growing the GATE programs,” its Web site says.
Approximately 600 GUSD students in third through 12th grade are identified for GATE. This school year, the program’s budget is $70,000.
“That $70,000 doesn’t go very far when you consider what has to be taken out of it, like monies for testing and so forth,” Hudson said. “So there’s not a lot of money that trickles down to the classroom level.”
Last year, about $30,000 went to educators’ salaries, $7,000 went to a part-time clerk, another $7,000 to employee benefits, $6,000 to instructional materials and $20,000 to services and operating expenditures, like holding meetings and sending mailers.
Marcia Brown, GUSD’s coordinator for student services who manages GATE, said program funding is always at risk during small budget years.
“I haven’t heard of any specific target that will directly hit GATE funding,” Brown said. “But I think we need to realize that it’s been basically under-funded from the beginning, so any cuts to it will be a huge hit.”
The district is working with parents to revise its planned GATE services for next year because it must re-submit for funding every year, Brown said.
“I’m sure there will not be an increase in funding, even if we wrote the best funding proposal,” she said.
Enter OpenGATE, which already is looking for grants from local and Silicon Valley businesses, to target technology, science, and the arts. Hudson said he’s heard from teachers at Rucker Elementary School, the only GUSD school with full-time GATE instruction, that they would like to do more, but need the resources to do it.
“We were thinking that perhaps OpenGATE could act as a grant-writing service,” Hudson said.
If the group establishes itself under the umbrella of the district’s non-profit Education Foundation, which is also under the larger Gilroy Foundation, it could be up and running with a board of directors as soon as a couple weeks from now, Hudson said. If OpenGATE creates its own non-profit, the process would take a few months.
Hudson said the group has not yet determined how it will distribute funding, but it will be largely teacher-driven. One idea is to ask teachers to apply for their own $1,000 grants.
OpenGATE hopes to fill in funding gaps and support existing programs like the GATE after-school academies taught by volunteer teachers and parents.
“There’s a lot of good things happening with the GATE program that we’d like to see continue,” Hudson said.
For now, the group and its Web site are acting as a liaison between the district and GATE parents, operating separately from a GATE parent advisory committee that meets monthly.
Brown and Hudson meet every other week to keep communication between the district and parents open. The minutes and agendas for those and parent advisory committee meetings are posted and distributed through the Web site.
Because not all parents have Internet access, Brown said the district will continue sending mailers to GATE parents, and is preparing to send one out next week complete with minutes from this month’s GATE parent advisory committee meeting, an agenda for next month’s, and information about OpenGATE.
Hudson said the group is always looking for more parents to join so issues with GATE can be addressed at every school.
“We’re primarily Rucker parents right now, so we have kind of a bias toward that, but there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with GATE district-wide,” he said.
The group wants to gather information about GATE services at each school, particularly to help parents with GATE identified children decide which school they will attend.
For more information, visit www.gilroyopengate.org.
