That’s what some school officials are saying after the dust-up
involving one board applicant
Gilroy – Gilroy School Board applicant Bob Heisey, who chided some Gilroy Unified School District Board members for not screening what he considered a racist question, is coming under fire for what many are calling an overreaction.
Incoming trustee Javier Aguirre, who won the vacant school board seat in a 4-2 vote, joined trustees Jaime Rosso and Dave McRae as well as GUSD Superintendent Edwin Diaz in questioning Heisey’s reaction after his defeat at Monday night’s special meeting.
“The overall impression I had was Mr. Heisey seemed uncomfortable talking about issues related to Hispanics and Hispanic students,” McRae said.
McRae said Heisey’s reaction to the question following Monday’s meeting, only convinced him further that he made the right decision in voting for Aguirre. Diaz also said he thinks Heisey’s remark that he would “never look at the Hispanic community the same after last night,” will only further the division in Gilroy.
Heisey wrote a letter to the Dispatch explaining why he thought the question was inappropriate. In the letter he talked about the issue of students learning English and how that topic was continually brought up during Monday’s meeting.
He said he didn’t have the cure-all for the low scores of English language learners and said maybe the district should look to other schools with high numbers of ELL students for an answer.
He ended the letter with “For the last several years the majority of the top people in the GUSD administration have been people with Hispanic last names. Perhaps it is time for the Hispanic community to hold its leaders responsible for this continuing problem.”
He also said during two interviews that Midtgaard should have passed it over, pointing out that the board did say they would not read offensive questions. But, because the board didn’t consider the quota query offensive, it passed through, Heisey said. Also what was the value of a question about the make-up of the board, particularly when there was a stack to choose from? he asked.
Four days after the meeting, reactions are still simmering in letters to the editor and in the community. During the meeting, Trustee Pat Midtgaard read an anonymous question asking Heisey “The Gilroy Unified School District is made up of over 60 percent Latino students. Shouldn’t the board reflect this reality?”
Heisey paused momentarily before saying “I don’t think, in my experience, I have felt it necessary to divide the Gilroy community into specific groups and make quotas for any particular group. I work with Hispanics, I travel around the world. I see the problems of people everywhere. The problems that people face around the world are the same as the people in Gilroy. So I guess I don’t necessarily think that’s important.”
McRae said the question directed at Heisey was perfectly acceptable because most of the community is Hispanic and it was simply asking if the board should reflect the community. He pointed out that the board is required by the state and federal governments to separate students by race and look at their progress on standardized tests.
Heisey, who attended Thursday’s regular school board meeting, pressed the point on the screening of the questions. He contended that the board did screen the questions because Diaz had to read through them to separate them into individual and group questions. Also, at the onset of the meeting Midtgaard said they would not read offensive questions.
The 57-year-old also reacted to comments from McRae who wrote a letter to the editor suggesting that Heisey is uncomfortable talking about issues specific to Hispanics.
“Why would I feel uncomfortable about that?” Heisey said. “We all realize there’s a problem (with the achievement gap between Hispanics and those learning to speak English). Just because I don’t have any particular or special answers to those questions? I feel as frustrated as everybody else does … Let’s dwell on the major problem, why are kids throughout our school district not achieving the way we’d like them to?”
Meanwhile, Diaz struck a conciliatory tone.
“I think the whole reaction to the decision is unfortunate,” said Diaz. “And when you bring up and describe a decision (saying) that it was result of someone’s race and apparently it has already divided the board.”
Diaz said the response is creating a division in the community and he knows that it will cause a snag in moving things forward.
“It frankly just takes away our focus of improving academic performance of all students,” he said.
Another local who attended the meeting to support Aguirre said he also thought the question directed at Heisey was fair.
“I actually really liked Bob’s answer regarding the question asked him, that we should not be hiring based on quotas,” said Rudy Rodriguez, a friend of Aguirre’s.
Both of the questions he dropped in the bowl were directed at Aguirre and happened to be pulled, Rodriguez said. Although he’s a member of the El Portal Charter School advisory committee and a basketball teacher at the high school, Rodriguez said he attended the meeting as a community member and to support Aguirre.
“I deliberately asked questions that would help get him appointed,” Rodriguez said.
