Among a flurry of requests to the new MH school trustees is one
to restore dignity
Members of the newly constituted Morgan Hill school district
board of trustees had barely settled in their seats Monday when
they were challenged by students and teachers on long-simmering
issues.
Among a flurry of requests to the new MH school trustees is one to restore dignity
Members of the newly constituted Morgan Hill school district board of trustees had barely settled in their seats Monday when they were challenged by students and teachers on long-simmering issues.
Donna Foster, vice president of the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers, urged trustees not to sacrifice instructional salaries in order to press ahead with controversial – and in some eyes, unneeded — capital projects.
Live Oak High School student body president Andy Cunningham asked them to find a way to make students who get reduced-price or free lunches indistinguishable from students who pay full price for the same meal.
There has been a feeling for ages in some quarters, Cunningham said, that students who pay less than full price for the subsidized meal are stigmatized.
The board, with three new members following the Nov. 5 election, couldn’t respond, bound by policy that lays out how and when issues are addressed. Agenda items follow protocol, moving from the informational stage to discussion to action.
Since trustees aren’t scheduled to meet again until Jan. 13, they and administrators have time to familiarize themselves with the issues.
Morgan Hill teachers are seeing their buying power evaporate, Fosters said.
In the past two years, the district has received a 5.87 percent increase in discretionary funds from the state, but has passed along less than 1.5 percent of it to teachers in the form of benefits, Foster said. Teachers in East Side Union High School District received almost a 10 percent increase in the same period, she said.
“What was once an occasional loss of employees to other districts has become a steady trickle. Even teachers with 20-plus years have found it profitable to move to other districts despite having to give up many years of service placement,” Foster said.
A San Jose Unified School District teacher with eight years in the classroom has an annual salary and compensation package of $70,000, in excess of $15,000 more than a Morgan Hill teacher with comparable experience, Foster said.
Since most of the district’s money must be spent according to state or federal guidelines, the use of discretionary funds-money the district can spend as it sees fit — requires balancing demands.
During the recent election campaign, teachers raised numerous questions about fiscal matters, including construction, operation and maintenance of schools at a time when the district is experiencing declining enrollment, Foster said.
Options to building Sobrato High School, scheduled to open in 2004, should be examined closely, she said, because many districts’ undertakings — whether academic programs or capital projects — began in economic good times. But the economy has slowed, she said.
“With changing realities we must also adjust,” Foster said.
“Teachers’ salaries cannot be compromised in order to subsidize worthy goals, but which lack sound economic principles. Teachers’ salaries cannot be compromised for the continuation of special programs or to correct budgetary shortfalls,” Foster said. “We invite you to begin a realistic dialog about creative solutions.”
Candidates revealed during the election campaign that they’re not entirely sold on Sobrato High.
Tom Kinoshita, who was elected to a third term, wants to move ahead with the project and supports the legal procedure now under way to acquire some needed land from hold-out sellers.
Khemici would have looked for another site; Hickey is concerned about cost overruns in light of similar experience involving Barrett Elementary School; Thomas believes the school is needed, but questions the use of eminent domain to acquire property.
The reduced-price or free lunch program, like the apocryphal story of the blind men describing the elephant, appears to be a matter of perspective.
Cunningham said certain cafeteria windows dispense a la carte items such as nachos while others offer the nutritionally balanced National School Lunch Program meal served in a telltale cardboard box. It is evident who pays little or nothing for the lunches, he said.
“It’s shameful. It’s a situation that should have been taken care of years ago. The lunch may be the only healthy meal a student gets all day, but having two lines discourages students from eating nutritional food,” Cunningham said.
Nancy Serigstad, co-principal at Live Oak, found the lunch-dispensing system – and the controversy — when she arrived five years ago.
“We’ve brought it to the attention of the district office, but they have no jurisdiction. The Office of Civil Rights has pushed us on this, too, but we don’t have any power to change the system,” Serigstad said.
Gilroy and Fremont Union school districts use prepaid cards, which tend to make it harder to identify students who pay nothing or get lunch at a reduced price, Serigstad said.
Mary Ann Grewohl, director of student nutrition, said that 68 percent of elementary school students eligible for free or reduced-price meals participate. The percentage drops to 21 percent at the district’s two middle schools and 17 percent at Live Oak.
Overall, Grewohl said, 30 percent of elementary school students get free or reduced-price lunches. Nineteen percent of middle school and 14 percent of high school students get the lunch, she said.
The degree of autonomy of Food Services personnel, who work at the district office, is unclear, and even school officials don’t know the names of students who get free or reduced-price lunches.
A Nov. 21 editorial in the Live Oak student newspaper, the Oak Leaf, cites what it says is a section of the California Education Code: “Children participating in the National School Lunch Program will not be overtly identified by the use of special tokens, special tickets, special service lines, separate entrances, separate dining areas or by any other means.”
On the other hand, Bonnie Branco, district assistant superintendent for business, said state law prohibits the nutritionally balanced meal served in the subsidized lunch program from being sold at the same place as food of minimal nutritional value.
Poor students get the lunch free or for 40 cents, depending on family income, Branco said. But affluent health nuts who buy the meal pay $1.50, she said.
Morgan Hill elementary students use school-issued identification to obtain the meals, Branco said. At the high school, it’s cash and carry, so it’s easier to notice how much a particular student pays.
Branco said she was going to dig deeper into the matter.
