My cell is 510-866-1025, my email is dishal@aol.com. I’d love to talk about the ups and downs of the program.

Chef

Dear Brother Carroll
Thank you for always being there standing up for what you believe to be in the best interests of our children. For the last 7 1/2 years, I have attempted to do the same in my role as a school board member. Had I been at the meeting last night, I would have continued to press for more clear, open, transparent and community engaged process. Some decisions get made without any regard for what parents, students or community members think. I have also learned that there are plenty of people inside our schools, the central office and the broader community who care deeply about our kids. There are others who don’t.

What is important to me is that we create learning enviroments designed with students in mind, not adults. When I came on to the board, there was a lot of nostalgia about McClymonds that seemed to ignore the situation in the late 1990′s where only a relative few kids were graduating from our esteemed high school. The belief that a major change was necessary was strong. The redesign into two smaller learning environments was supported by Principal Lynn Dodd, most of the staff, lots of school reformers, Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools and others including my self. The effort, though well intended, suffered from a lack of real buyin by many on the BEST team. Ms. Dodd tried to hold it all together, advocated to add a middle school to the campus (KIZMET) and in effect, tried to be the “principal” for BEST, though Dr. Taylor was designated as such. Ms. Dodd left abruptly and shortly after, Mr. Gray was hired after he was displaced by Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaks.

In my opinion, the relationship between BEST and EXCEL has been strained, that the kids have internalized the tensions that the adults have with each other, and the fall back has been, by many alumni and others, that we should “go back to the original McClymonds”. I think that we need to understand what is good about our history and build on it. I think that we need to understand what is good about our present and build on that as well.

There are no easy fixes to what ails our children’s lives as students, as people, as our community’s future. As we go forward, we need much great engagement of all key stakeholders – parents, students, educators, other residents – in making our schools better. We should demand a seat at the table before a perceived problem or ‘bad decision” becomes manifest.

Again, thanks for your involvement as well as that of others who continue to work on behalf of positive change.

Greg Hodge