March 10, 2005

ValleyViewpoints

Principal sends wrong message to students

Editor,
When I read the headline in last week’s Almaden Times, “Almaden elementary school cracks down on sick students,” my initial assumption was that parents were being reminded to keep sick kids at home. Fantastic!

Having gone through this many years ago with my own child, no one in their right mind wants to end up with their own sick kid because someone else doesn’t have the decency to keep theirs home when they’re contagious.

Much to my surprise and dismay, the sub headline read, “Los Alamitos principal urges parents to send sick students to class for roll call to earn attendance dollars.” Now, the article had my undivided attention.

My synopsis of the story is that the principal, Lisa Gonzales, has decided that treading a fine line between headcount funding and ethics is justified. That it’s OK, in her mind, to bend the rules in order to take money that I assume was technically not earned for absentee students. Get your sick kid out of bed, put her uniform on, drag her to school, dump her in the classroom where she can infect everyone else (including the teacher), get her name on the attendance sheet, then take her home—that’s my understanding of the essentials of this message from the Los Alamitos administration to parents.

What really disturbs me most is that this is coming from someone in a position of authority and responsibility, basically telling parents and students to do whatever is necessary to get funding, even if it means being deceitful and exposing others to infections.

I recognize that the school funding protocol may seem unfair and that it probably helps create these rock-and-a-hard-place situations, but it’s exactly how people in authority respond in these circumstances that sends a message to everyone around them who may be influenced by their judgments and actions. In this case, it’s every parent and every student in this school, along with many others outside of this school’s community who are exposed to this way of thinking.

Here’s where this kind of logic leads. If the really important thing is to maximize reported headcount, why inconvenience anyone? Just put down the roll call tally that pleases you or that helps achieve your objectives. Is that really any different that putting a sick student in a seat at the beginning of the day and then immediately sending them home? You say you need to count uniforms? Why not just drape one over each seat, do the count, and then no one would need to show up. I really don’t think that’s what anyone wants, but offering this approach opens this type of solution as a possibility.

Maybe this administrator doesn’t have a hard time explaining the legality and ethics of this situation, but I sure do. If I had a child exposed to this principal’s recommendation and he asked me to explain it, I wouldn’t even try.

And I certainly wouldn’t want this principal to do it for me because her rationale sends exactly the wrong message to our children about proper ethics, good judgment, and leadership.

There apparently was some immediate backlash since she and a spokeswoman for the district tried to backpedal and re-spin the original message, but all that was patently transparent. The message was already delivered, it was irresponsible, and it sets the wrong standards for our youngsters who are at their most impressionable age. I only wish this administration would spend more time on producing a superior learning environment instead of teaching bad principles of conduct.

Doug Keller
Gillis Drive

No wonder the school ‘system’ is so screwed up!

Editor,
After reading the article, “Almaden elementary school cracks down on sick students,” I have to say that I was completely disgusted with the principal at Los Alamitos for even THINKING about leading the children and the teachers in a lie: for money.

Even though a parent might have a sick child with him/her while dropping off their other child(ren), it doesn’t mean that they should dress the (sick) student in uniform and report to the teacher for attendance purposes! The teacher would then be participating in the lie to the department of education saying that, “yes, my student(s) attended school for that day.”

Taking roll is for the kids who are there FOR THE ENTIRE DAY, not for a student to pretend to be participating (in their uniform) and going to tell their teacher, “yes I’m here” and then going home.

This is teaching the kids to lie, which then escalates to the teachers who lie in saying that their sick students were at school for the day; in order to get the $33.10 per pupil expenditure allowance? Come on!

Why would principal Gonzales say that she is “in between a rock and a hard place?” What is so difficult in deciding to teach the children to tell the truth: IF YOU’RE SICK AND OUT FOR THE DAY, YOU’RE NOT AT SCHOOL AND WE CAN’T CLAIM YOU AS BEING HERE! You don’t lie and pretend you are well and at school for the day in order for the school to get more money!

Gee, Ms. Gonzales, I wonder just why some of your teachers are having a hard time with this and you’re not! YOU’RE TRYING TO PASS A LIE AND WANTING THEM TO PARTICIPATE WITH YOU!

Principal Gonzales was caught. Another letter sent home to the school’s families, not so direct this time, will not excuse the first letter. She said what she wanted in the first letter and this second letter will (most likely) be watered down, backing down from what she really wants and will try to appease those over her.

I’m also disgusted with the San Jose Unified School District’s spokeswoman who defended Ms. Gonzales! I guess the district doesn’t care at ALL about how a school goes about their business! No wonder the school “system” is so screwed up!

Michelle Champlin
Valley Quail Circle

Principal should be reprimanded or reassigned

Editor,
As an Almaden resident for many years, I read your article in the March 4 edition with interest and grave concern.

What lesson is Los Alamitos Principal Lisa Gonzales giving to her students by encouraging them to report into their class even though they know they will not be staying for any instruction that day?

Is it that there are always ways to work the system and that they need to learn this early in life so that they won’t be naive enough to think that the rules are for everyone? Is it that if enough money is involved that it’s OK to fudge, just a little? Or, perhaps it’s that truth, ethics, and going by the rules are outdated concepts in today’s dog-eat-dog world?

Rather than asking parents and students to be complicit in this rouse, just maybe the principal should just change the daily attendance reports before they are sent to the District and short cut all the public and staff criticism.

Whatever the lesson, someone who holds the position of elementary school principal should think of the moral result of any communication of this type before putting it in writing to anyone. Ms. Gonzales should either be publicly reprimanded by the district or reassigned to a position where she does not have these types of opportunities to negatively impact young minds.

Peggy Williams
Marble Court

Troy Pollett will be forever missed by family and friends

Editor,
Thank you for your article on Troy Pollett in last week’s issue. Troy will be forever missed by his family and friends. This is a REAL heartache.

I’m disturbed that Anthony Sanchez has not been brought to trial, and by the tone of his mother’s words. It sounds like she thinks the victims are to blame. This is a shame.

Jill McGraw
Coffey Court

Coyote dilemma: To know a danger and not avert it is tantamount to consent of murder

Editor,
Your newspaper has been indispensable reading ever since the week I heard some very frightening sounds of an animal fight at around 2 a.m. in the morning many months ago.

I then read your subsequent article about a cat’s skull found on a lawn, killed by a coyote, which gave me an explanation for the bone-chilling sounds I had heard around that time.

I began to follow the series of articles on the Villas of Almaden coyote problem always wondering exactly where the Villas were located, and whether I had really in fact heard the cat’s heart-rending last cry for life. For, if I had, then the Villas must not be far from my home.

So, when your article came out last week with a map showing where the Villas are located, my curiosity was finally laid to rest. Thank you for that map! The Villas are indeed close to my home, and I indeed must have heard that cat’s final death cry. If that is the case, I feel responsible to say a word about how it sounded, because I’ve never heard anything so scary in my life. Cats sound like they are crying when they are mating, but that night’s scream from the cat was altogether different. It made me freeze with fear. I sympathize with the environmentalists’ concern for the pain and torture of using leg traps on coyotes, and controlling their population through euthanasia may upset people who say we don’t control human births this way. However, from what I heard that night of the cat’s screams, the cat surely deserves some pity from the environmentalists’ compassionate hearts as well.

Furthermore, if delays in resolving this issue give way to a human infant/toddler death or injury by mauling, I question the placement of compassion in the hearts of environmentalists who would rather see innocent toddlers injured than coyotes.

To know a danger and not avert it in time for disaster to strike, when such prevention is possible, is tantamount to consenting for murder. What one has done to others will return upon oneself in like manner, and multiplied.

What will happen when he who consents to the murder of innocents finds his or her own children mauled by beasts?

Name withheld upon request
Antigua Drive

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