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Speak Out
Willow Glen residents can follow WGNA's electronic discussion
In the "Traffic Calming" article in the March 21 issue of the Willow Glen Resident, you mentioned the lively discussion that recently took place on the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association "eList," WGNA's email subscriber-list community bulletin board.
For the benefit of those not yet on the eList, we have posted a synopsis of the discussion on our website at www.wgna.net.
The eList is a free service of the WGNA. To join, drop an email to "admin@wgna.net" with the words "join eList" in the subject line. (Or ask for "digest eList," which will give no more than a single email per day with a "table of contents" followed by the day's posts.)
While you're on the WGNA.net website, check out the photos of the Willow Glen Elementary School over the years, read newsletters and articles, find links to bus schedules and trail maps, and (most importantly!) print out a WGNA membership application form. Everyone is invited to join the neighborhood association: dues are just $10/year per household. If you live outside the Willow Glen area you can still support WGNA with a $10 nonvoting associate membership. And if you don't have Internet access, we still can be reached by phone at 408.294.WGNA.
Lawrence Ames
WGNA board
Governance standards are attempt to muzzle school board members
I would like to respond to the article about "standards to govern behavior by board members" in the March 28 issue of the Willow Glen Resident. Both Board President Gary Rummelhoff and Superintendent Linda Murray state that the board has been working on these standards for about two years and the "Willow Glen issue," regarding equitable funding to meet students' needs, is coincidental with the timing. I beg to disagree. The governance standards where board members are "muzzled," or must speak as one was accelerated, commencing with the board retreat in December 2000. The sole purpose of this retreat was to admonish me not to speak out regarding controversial issues, and to prevent any meaningful discussion that the Willow Glen community might initiate concerning equitable funding. So much for public engagement!
Mr. Rummelhoff states that the new policy is intended to guide the board in working effectively to represent the needs of all the district's students. That sounds wonderful, until you analyze the desegregation budget and realize that Mr. Rummelhoff's trustee area, Almaden Valley, is more equal than Willow Glen. Almaden Valley secondary schools have retained 90 percent of their mostly white students, while 50 percent of Willow Glen's neighborhood students go north or south to programs that receive specialized funding.
When these students leave, their openings are filled with nonneighborhood students. Many of these students require additional supports to be successful--some are low-income, some are limited-English-speaking, some low-achieving. Specialized funding to meet their needs does not follow them from their home neighborhoods. Willow Glen schools attempt to meet their needs with very limited resources, impacting the regular program.
As a result of these student movements to different campuses, Willow Glen secondary schools are 30 percent white and 55 percent Hispanic. It's quite clear why neighborhood students of our community feel the need to leave for greener pastures.
Almaden Valley schools enroll 2 percent of San Jose Unified's disadvantaged Hispanic students, yet receive eight times that share of desegregation budget (16 percent). Willow Glen has three times as many disadvantaged Hispanic students and receives about the same amount of funding. Served with the same desegregation dollars, Leland High has 1 percent of the Spanish-speaking limited-English students, while Willow Glen High has 22 times as many. Leland can choose to use a portion of its Spanish ESL (English-second language) teacher's time to offer advanced Spanish language classes, while Willow Glen's teachers are fully engaged with ESL classes.
Superintendent Murray and the desegregation attorneys are allowing white families to go south to Almaden Valley schools, pretending that this is promoting diversity and alleviating racial isolation. Only choice or magnet schools have been receiving large sums of money over the past 10 years, and they have become the exemplary schools where families want to send their children.
Desegregation has made a few schools attractive and the rest of us unattractive. In the meantime, the desegregation attorneys are denying programs and adequate funding to meet the needs of the children from throughout the district, who are enrolled in the Willow Glen schools, just because the schools are located in Willow Glen.
Desegregation is essentially a patronage system and those of us who are not a part of the system are sent to the back of the bus. The district has returned to neighborhood schools for elementary and I believe it is time to return our middle and high schools to their neighborhoods. This way desegregation dollars could be allocated to the students who need them most, not to expensive performing arts programs that are not closing the achievement gap between white and Hispanic students. The main beneficiaries of desegregation are high-achieving families that know how to work the system and see a great bargain. The rest of us are told to fundraise and work twice as hard.
I recently attended Honors Day at Willow Glen High and was pleased with the diversity and talent of our students who walked across the stage. Their teachers and administrators are doing a great job with these students.
However, encouraging other Willow Glen families to leave our schools by offering glamorous choice programs that are not available to Willow Glen families only weakens our community. You don't see this happening at Leland or other Almaden Valley schools. I wonder why.
An honest and open discussion about desegregation/choice is long overdue. The allocation of desegregation funds needs to be analyzed and a fair solution to this onerous choice program resolved. The very students who are to benefit from desegregation seem not to be receiving their fair share while high-achieving students are reaping the benefits.
Theses comments represent my personal opinion and do not reflect the board's philosophy.
Carol Myers
SJUSD Area 3 Trustee
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
