In the Jan 5, letter in the Willow Glen Resident , J.T. Clark stated that he will only send his child to a San Jose Unified School with an API score above 750. Clark also stated that he was impressed with Hacienda Elementary's unique learning programs and student performance. As the following data shows, Hacienda does not have a unique learning program. Hacienda has a very clever student selection process, which allows its API scores to remain higher.

School  White  Hispanic  %White  %Disadv.
Booksin  873  913  797  59  14
Willow Glen  708  830  660  24  46
Schallenberger  768  830  712  33  40
Hacienda  834  856  772  52  9

As the above API scores show, your child can receive an excellent education at any Willow Glen school. As a magnet school, Hacienda must be willing to take its fair share of economically disadvantaged students. Willow Glen Elementary and Schallenberger schools have been receiving more than their fair share. If SJUSD required Hacienda to reflect the district averages for disadvantaged students, the way they make Willow Glen Elementary and Schallenberger do, then Hacienda's API scores would also drop.

Clark should also be aware that of SJUSD's seven middle schools and six high schools, only three schools, all in Almaden Valley, Bret Harte, Castillero, and Leland have API scores above 750.

The reason for these high scores is that Almaden Valley has strong neighborhood schools unlike the rest of the district. Until the district's administration and the school board recognize the importance of neighborhood schools, don't expect higher API scores anytime in the near future.

Tom Myers

Kiner Avenue

The district leaves its integrity in question

Randol Elementary School is one of the two newest casualties in the quest to balance school district budgets affected by declining enrollment. The teaching staff questions the selection process and has not been given an adequate explanation by district administration.

For years, Randol has been a model of excellence to the district. We earned the California Distinguished School award, and became one of the district's first elementary Blue Ribbon Schools. Our students, faculty and programs have received many awards, including international recognition. In today's world of API scores, Randol's score of 855 is high for the state and the sixth highest in the district, rising steadily each year, even with our socio-economically diverse population. The district, however, insists that the programs, staff, and students can be moved and that success will continue. This is in total disregard to school climate. A successful program can certainly not be moved when the community no longer exists.

We are trying to understand the criteria needed by the district to make the necessary budget cuts. At the district advisory meetings official information sheets were distributed. This information included pros and cons for closing each site.

Overall costs: Randol was listed as an "expensive facility to operate". No other school had that description. Using Measure F funds, Randol's renovation was completed. What is the meaning of "expensive to operate"? If saving money is truly a priority, why not combine Randol and Allen School populations at a newer and better facility, Steinbeck?

Transportation: The cost of transporting students from Randol to other sites will have a minimal impact on the district budget. However, a greater saving to the district would be for students to return to their neighborhood schools.

A percentage of boundary residents (those living outside the school's official boundaries): This particular criteria has been a sore point with the staff for a number of years. Randol's location against the hills makes it a very attractive site, but unable to grow on two sides because we also border the Oak Grove School District. The district has never realigned Randol School boundaries. Twenty percent of Randol's enrollment is children from the Allen attendance area. Many of our student population choose to come to a school offering academic challenge, science, computer, and music programs, and a positive school climate. Until budget cuts, the school was a science magnet with a full time science program and teachers were trained under a nationwide science grant, ITI (Integrated Thematic Instruction).

The process of some district decisions is questionable. In a science school, even the students know that they have to make the variables in an experiment "fair and equal" to arrive at a valid conclusion. We would have hoped that the criteria used by the district's task-force committee would have been used fairly. Even a task-force committee member from Carson elementary said, "Under the criteria that they gave us, Randol was not chosen. I would believe we deserve an explanation. I want the process to be fair." If the district had plotted the criteria for all closures on the same grid, they would see the process was not fair. The decision needs reconsideration.

Last year, Randol was on the possible closure list and our concerned community attended all the meetings. Flyers and an informational packet were sent to the board. We were reprimanded by the district office and told that we had acted inappropriately. Due to last year's reprimand, we purposely did not have a huge public outcry. However, Randol staff and our community attended all public meetings and participated in questioning the criteria. The Randol community deserves a fair and public explanation and review of the process used to select us as one of the schools to be closed.

Barbara Green and the Teaching Staff at James B. Randol

Vandalism should not
be in any community

I am so upset by the young people that think it is so much fun to steal the lights off of the outdoor Christmas trees. We in Willow Glen enjoy our streets to look decorated for the holidays.

Barbara Martin

Malone Road