If San Benito High School is waiting for its report card to
arrive in the mailbox, we can confidently guess that it would
receive a failing grade in deportment and public policy.
If San Benito High School is waiting for its report card to arrive in the mailbox, we can confidently guess that it would receive a failing grade in deportment and public policy.
The recent outcry over canceling the Navel Junior ROTC program at San Benito High is a worrisome symptom of a larger malaise. A year ago, the region’s biggest high school hatched a new class schedule at a board of trustees’ meeting convened shortly after the end of the school year. Students were notified late in summer break. This year, it’s ROTC. Judging from the ensuing hair-tearing, it might have been handled with more tact, just as last year’s abrupt schedule change should have been.
While the school staff claims enrollment was inadequate to sustain the program, Navy officials deny that. According to their brass, the program was cancelled when an instructor left the school staff. A search for a replacement appears not to have been conducted.
There’s reason for concern over the propriety of offering class credit for a program styled after the military. Is public school an appropriate venue for militarism? Does it offer military recruiters an unfair entree into a pool of impressionable youth? At a time when adolescent obesity is expanding like waistbands at Thanksgiving, when as many as 30 percent of today’s teens are expected to become diabetics, is it right to offer physical education credit for NJROTC as the high school had?
But the fact is that some 100 students at the Hollister campus were enrolled in the program, and had signed up for it next fall. Summarily canceling the program after the end of the school year is foolish. If there are issues attached to continuing the program, it deserves an honest public discussion.
San Benito High School is a large institution, with an enrollment approaching 3,000. Some students find a home in agriculture or vocational education classes, others call the drama department or dance classes home. Several dozen students wrapped their identities around spit-and-polish military regimen via NJROTC.
The stories parents and NJROTC allies told about disenfranchised kids whose academic performance blossomed once they found a connection through the program are compelling. At the very least, they should have been given a real opportunity to comment and, perhaps, to take steps to rescue the program.
Public schools in general, and San Benito High School in particular, would profit by soliciting meaningful public input.
