Farewell, Olive Branch: A Quick Update on the Andrew Hill Cessesion Movement

On October 20, the ESUHSD board of trustees voted unanimously against Hill’s bid to convert to a charter. All eyes are on Hill as they prepare to regroup and decide on their next move. The charter petition is a bold and understandably controversial move, the source of lively debate and thoughtful discussion in faculty lounges throughout Santa Clara County.

The topic of discussion over the next few weeks will also be on the arrogance of the Board of Trustees. The post-board decision Mercury News article gives a little insight into the district dysfunction behind the cession move. Craig Mann, East Side’s most polarizing trustee, claims “The petition has ‘some gaps that have failure written all over them.’"

Hill will undoubtedly make a few mistakes along the way. That is expected with a group of pioneers moving into waters only a few brave others have charted. But when it comes to “gaps that have failure written all over them,” the East Side Trustees need only look at the minutes of past board meetings.

The worst part of the denial vote was the underhanded legal trick district administration employed in submitting their concerns to the charter petitioners. Members of Hill’s staff met with district administrators over the past few months and agreed in good faith to grant them an extension to address their questions and concerns. That “cabinet of quality” includes interim superintendent Bob “lay ‘em off” Nunez; Rick Abeyta, whose 6 figure salary plus admin perks leads to such quality work as telling an Overfelt homeowner to remove the loco weed from his or her front yard (editor’s note: that’s worth 150k a year?); and Alan Garafolo, who did such a great job forgetting to order portables for a charter school this summer that Overfelt administrators were forced to take over 800 students onto their campus. That competent bunch waited until FOUR HOURS before the board meeting to submit their concerns to the Hill staff. As Hill’s lawyer noted, this was a deplorable bad faith move.

Bad faith. Those two words characterize the failure that is the East Side Union Board of Trustees. Need other examples? Go back to the special board meeting on October 8. Hill’s charter petitioners made a presentation on that date as well, but the telling failures of district administration and trustees came during other parts of the meeting. During the public comment session, a Piedmont Hills parent with an autistic child chastised the district for repeatedly failing to meet the demands of his child’s legal education plan, known as an IEP. The details, from failing to pick the child up at an appropriate hour to not providing the appropriate support staff to never returning repeated phone calls led to a threat of a lawsuit. The speech was so passionate the only other sound in the room was the inaudible breaking of every listener’s heart.

A few hours later, the trustees took up Patricia Martinez-Roach’s issue of informing parents that they could opt out of providing personal student and family information to U.S. military recruiters. The issue is took long to cover in this article, but the dysfunction of the board showed when, after agreeing that they needed to send all district parents an informational letter, the trustees publicly argued over when to send a letter. That argument lasted for twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes spent on how and when to send a letter? And these people have the ability to notice “gaps that have failure written all over them” in a charter school petition?

If the ESUHSD board wants to see failure, they should plaster mirrors on the board room walls. The Hill staff gave them an olive branch, a chance to work together on this new enterprise. By denying the petition, they forced the staff to consider converting to independent status. It seems like the trustees would rather have a declaration of war.

The bad faith move by the board did lead to one other decision. If there is no community outcry for a recall election, we'll just state our position now: NO INCUMBENTS IN 2006!

BOARD DENIES CHARTER BID

TEACHER-LED GROUP PLANS MEETING TO CONSIDER OPTIONS AFTER 4-0 VOTE

By Luis Zaragoza

Mercury News

The teacher-led group that wants to convert Andrew Hill High into an independently run charter school plans to meet today to figure out its next move after district trustees voted Thursday night to reject their bid.

The charter group could appeal the decision at the county or state level.

East Side Union High School District trustees voted 4-0, with George Shirakawa Jr. absent, to deny the charter petition, citing an administration analysis that found the group's plan had an inadequate educational program and lacked detailed descriptions of essential elements such as governance. The board also said the petitioners were unlikely to be able to successfully implement their plan, citing unresolved employment and student enrollment issues.

The petition has ``some gaps that have failure written all over them,'' said Trustee Craig Mann before Thursday night's vote.

The largely pro-charter crowd of about 100 sat silently during the vote.

The charter group had originally hoped to convert the campus in time for this fall's classes, but in July both sides acknowledged time was too short. The group then set a goal of opening in fall 2006 and set in motion an application process that brought them to Thursday's vote.

If the charter group finds a way to prevail, Andrew Hill, with 2,100 students, would become the largest charter school in Northern California.

Julie Pratico, a librarian at Andrew Hill and leader of the charter group, said she was e-mailed the administration's analysis just four hours before the 6 p.m. board meeting. She said many of the organizational and logistical issues raised in the analysis could be addressed in the months before the school opened.

The group's lawyer, Jerry Simmons, took that thought even further.

"All of the issues . . . could have been addressed in an afternoon,'' Simmons said.

Bob Nuñez, the district superintendent, said that wasn't likely.

Manuel Herrera, the board president, said he would like to see the charter group try again, especially if they could demonstrate that teachers still support the charter and that parents are better informed.

Charter schools are public schools. They receive state funding based on student attendance. They differ in that a charter school's administration, made up of teachers and parents, sets its own spending priorities without having to secure district approval.

Charter proponents say Andrew Hill should be converted to ensure continuity for programs that are making it possible for students to succeed. They point to the medical careers magnet and a summer math tutoring program as examples of ways the school has adapted to meet the needs of its mostly poor, mostly Latino and Vietnamese students.

The charter conversion, proponents say, would give teachers the freedom to extend the school day and otherwise skip red tape in setting up or expanding programs they believe will help raise student achievement.