DEAR EDITOR:
I feel compelled to write and express my concern about the
school district’s desire to remove the Slingerland program.
DEAR EDITOR:
I feel compelled to write and express my concern about the school district’s desire to remove the Slingerland program. I have four children in Gilroy schools, two of which have benefited from the Slingerland program. My youngest is in third grade at Eliot so he will be allowed to finish the program.
I could easily not concern myself with the district’s latest goofs but I feel that this one will be very detrimental to many children who need the chance to succeed. My son was at Luigi Aprea for first grade and, thankfully, had a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Kludt, who recognized that he needed additional help to learn to read. She pushed me to have him retested and pushed me to get him in to Eliot. When my son started second grade at Eliot his reading abilities were that of a new first grader. Even with a teacher who was aware of his needs and a reading teacher who was Slingerland trained at Luigi, he did not get the help he needed to begin to read.
He needed what they have at Eliot, Slingerland immersion. He still struggles but I can see he is starting to improve and I hope to have him at grade level by the end of fourth grade. Luckily there is a whole support team at Eliot who are working toward the same thing. They meet regularly to discuss my sons needs and the many others at Eliot, thus keeping these children from falling through the cracks.
Different things are done or programs tried to help the children at Eliot be successful. This would not be done at other schools as they do not have the resources all together to work out each child’s needs.
I know the Slingerland program messes with the neighborhood school idea and costs the district more money, but it is well worth every penny and inconvenience to help a child succeed. And I know it is an inconvenience because I have four children in four schools and spend a lot of my time driving kids to and from schools all over town. It isn’t easy and I look forward to vacations as much as my children, but it is what I feel will best help my children succeed.
As a side note, if the district drops Slingerland, why wouldn’t they drop GATE? Having a daughter in sixth grade in GATE, I read that they already will do away with it in junior high. I believe it won’t be long until it will be gone from Rucker also. I’m sure if you ask Superintendent Edwin Diaz he would assure you that no such thing will be done, but he also assured me that the Slingerland program would not be dropped, as I had heard rumored, when I asked him at one of the meetings for the school bond. And they wonder why we don’t trust the district!
Tammy Dickson, Gilroy
Submitted Wednesday, Feb. 26 to ed****@****ic.com
