I’ve always liked this biblical quote:
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own?
It’s applicable to the District’s and Board’s current handling of the unusually high level of kindergaren enrollment for next year.
For those who may not be aware of the issue, next year looks to have the largest kindergarten enrollment in San Carlos in a long while. Three of the four elementary schools will be under some strain, with White Oaks being far and away the most difficult situation.
That school has a “normal” annual capacity of somewhere between 70 and 80 kindergartners. This year 133 students enrolled there. To say that this represents a major challenge for the District would be an extreme understatement.
However, how to respond to this situation is not the subject of this posting. Instead, I want to clarify something that I believe will get lost in the shuffle as rancor builds and energy levels rise.
It’s clear to me District staff did not do an adequate job responding to this situation. They have spent, and are spending, a lot of time and effort assessing alternatives. But they failed to manage public expectations.
Put another way, they defined the problem too narrowly as “what do we do about this surge in enrollment?” Instead of “what do we do about this surge in enrollment, and how do we guide our community, particularly all the concerned parents, through the resolution of the situation?”
As days pass I can sense a growing feeling among the Board that staff needs to be held accountable for their handling of this situation. Which is, of course, right and proper.
But there’s another level of responsibility here, too, and it lies with the Board. Both Tom Quiggle and I strongly urged that a public hearing be held on the situation shortly after it surfaced. For reasons that I do not fully understand my colleagues rejected this suggestion.
One of the reasons why the Board didn’t support Tom and me had to do with Measure B. There was concern public discussion of a sensitive topic would adversely affect the effort to get it approved. Of course, not addressing the situation in a timely fashion has now generated a lot of negative community energy. Which goes to demonstrate the validity of the old adage about being careful what you wish for because you may get it.
So, shame on all us trustees for not giving the Board a leadership role in this crisis. Particularly when we knew, from prior experience, that staff has a tendency to define these kinds of problems too narrowly.