One school Board seat will decide whether the District reopens its long fight over detracked freshman classes. Michael Dekshenieks, who is running unopposed for the Area D seat, and Trustee Richard Ginn both favor restoring ninth-grade honors classes. If Alon Shiran, who has promised to “bring back advanced and honors classes,” unseats Board President Amy Koo, he would join Ginn and Dekshenieks as the deciding vote.
The Election Desk endorses Koo. She brings 13 years of school board experience, including nine on the Belmont-Redwood Shores board. In February, she voted to close TIDE Academy, a difficult and painful decision that avoided staff layoffs and saved about $14.5 million over four years. As a result, this month, the Board was able to approve a 5% raise for teachers.
On detracking, the District’s current blend of detracked freshman classes and later AP options is functional. After M-A merged its two main freshman English classes into Multicultural Literature and Voice, the share of socioeconomically disadvantaged (SED) students earning at least a C rose from about half to 74% by the course’s second year. Teachers and administrators largely support the detracked classes.
Our endorsement doesn’t rest solely on whether detracking works. Even voters who disagree with the District’s stance on freshman year tracking should prefer keeping it to fighting over it again. We agree with a point that Trustee Mary Beth Thompson and President of the Sequoia District Teachers Association Edith Salvatore made at the April 22 meeting.
“I do not believe continuing to relitigate this one question over and over is the best use of Board time,” Thompson said. “I do not see evidence of harm.”
“I think it’s important, as we see this topic come back again and again, that we not get worn down and make a knee-jerk reaction to change something when we don’t have data to support that change,” Salvatore said.
A Shiran win would create a majority of trustees who want to reopen the detracking question. Previous rounds of this debate consumed hours of public comment, cost $54,500 for a consultant’s study, and created tense meetings where teachers lined up to defend detracking, and parents lined up to oppose it. With a recall drive underway, a structural deficit, and lawsuits accumulating, the District should not spend another term relitigating detracking.
So your argument is that the board shouldn’t spend time listening to what the parents want for their kids? Got it. I’ll vote for Alon.
I agree with javier. Where your evidence teachers support Amy? The union misleading mailer was based on three teachers supporting Amy, union bosses at the local chapter who notably did not allow an actual vote of the 500 teachers nor did they even try to invite input from the 500. They then put out a misleading mailer claiming teachers support koo making it sound like a majority of teachers do when in actuality many support alon. Which is deceitful and undemocratic of the union. Why not take an actual vote? Because the union bosses might find the majority of teachers support alon. As for all the money wasted on a 54k consultant, that’s a huge waste of money that should have been spent on schools, teachers, and students.
So this newspaper trying to censure me when I pointed out the misleading mailer sent by the local chapter of the teachers union. The decision to support koo was made by only three teachers. The actual 500 teachers were not consulted or asked to vote. I said this is undemocratic and misleading based on three teachers votes to then put out a union mailer claiming teachers support koo. Why did my comment saying this and saying I agree with Javier disappear? And the 54k spent on a consultant is a waste of money better spent on teachers, schools, and parents. And where’s the evidence teachers support koo and detracting? Most support Alon and honors classes. Where’s the students endorsement you claim ? The fact is they are going door to door trying to get people to vote for Alon. They want their honors classes back. Trying to censure my comments saying this is undemocratic. And it’s American democracy at work for people to debate these points. I bet you won’t leave my comment here you already deleted my identical comment. How undemocratic.