The Cupertino Courier

First Word

Diversity forums: Time to move on

By Jon Hoornstra

Capt. Bob Wilson commands the sheriff's Westside Substation located in Saratoga. He and his officers patrol a territory that includes all of Cupertino, including some 25,000 students in city schools. His officers are a routine presence at area schools throughout the week.

I'm always pleased to see police at a school, mainly for their traffic-safety value. For whatever reasons, motorists are more careful and thoughtful when cops are around.

But I was surprised to find myself talking with Capt. Wilson last week not about traffic or pedestrian safety, but cultural diversity. I needed to know if there was an emerging upward trend in police problems at Monta Vista High School to explain, at least in part, the school's decision this year to allocate large blocks of student, faculty and administrator time to discuss "diversity" and related "ethnic issues" at student assemblies and forums for the general public.

My interest was also piqued by the presence of "hired guns," professional communicators from the local area brought in to run the meetings and train student "facilitators." The experts are part of a group known as the Public Dialogue Consortium, paid $80,000 from a combined Packard Foundation donation and tax dollars for work at Monta Vista and elsewhere. Their involvement is the kind of assistance one expects to see when solutions to problems are beyond the resources of a school or district.

But Capt. Wilson's answer, good to hear though it was, didn't explain any of it. Bottom line from the captain: "Monta Vista is a superb school and a very safe school."

End of police report.

So, not only was there no discernible police problem to explain the heightened interest in ethnic issues, but the police perspective is that the school is "superb" and the campus "very safe." Life doesn't get any better.

Regardless, all Monta Vista classes were cut on March 5 to about 35 minutes each so that the entire student body of more than 2,000 young men and women could be assembled to discuss race and ethnic relations. It was an enormous allocation of time that an assembly of 400 Monta Vista students last November said wasn't justified.

The Courier's front-page photograph of Nov. 12 showed Monta Vista senior Tejasvi Srimushnam at the first assembly. He expressed the dominant sentiment in plain language.

"The problem is so small that it doesn't even need to be addressed," he said.

Even the student newspaper, El Estoque, published a critical column. In the Feb. 13 edition, two seniors expressed their exasperation over an upcoming forum on what language should be spoken in classrooms.

"Forum this, forum that," they wrote. "We're starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel, here, folks."

In spite of the prevailing sentiment, administrators took even more time following the March 5 assembly. Classes were again interrupted the following morning by student "facilitators," for in-class discussions of the previous day's assembly. Same results--most felt their time had been wasted.

Even Kim Pearce, a member of the consulting consortium, now agrees. "For the students, there is no issue, and it's probably time to move on," she said last week.

Principal Mary Stone appears to have come to a similar conclusion. "We really don't see ethnic problems on the campus," she told me last week. "The written evaluations from the assemblies and forums suggest it's time to move on to other topics."

In spite of my implied criticisms of the school's administration, I hasten to add that Monta Vista's leaders and teachers obviously do a lot of things right.

The school couldn't otherwise acquire such high praise from police officials, not to mention the many other indicators of high academic achievement at the school.

But when it comes to dealing effectively with a diverse school and community, the kids are way ahead of the adults.

I think it's time to stop fretting over ethnicity and ethnic population percentages. Let's try to catch up with the students.

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