My own Father died and mother was stuck at age 28 with three ranging in age from one month to seven years of age. Had it not been for grandparents we might never have gone to school.

What we need is a Town Hall meeting to discuss and sift through that which needs to be done to solve the problem.

I intend to push real hard on that subject immediately after the City elections. Trustees of the school district may resist the idea for fear of loss of control….( or the added weight of cocern principally over the budget). I believe myself in possession of arguments to the contrary….. I’ll be shooting my big Irish mouth off during the runup to the School Board election in November.

Nop. I wioll not run….. I would be 80m years of age before being aworn in if I did win….. wind up like Mr. Petersen with moouth agape… missing half of what was really going on at public meetings… which caused Vigil to sit immediately to the right and whisper …. what? Instructions?

That is why Reynoso is beating that subject to death!

I do not care who sits where except for the fact of the ear whispers…. it gives the wrong impression of who is in charge. If it is worth a whisper, it is worth saying it out loud…. or move the Supt.’s chair!

Current ‘interim’ Supt introduced the thought that we need a special parcel tax of $200. per property…… I will not vote for that until they solve the damn problem with truancy and transience. Truancy at High School levels alone are costing the budget $1,000,000 per year… did you know that?

I would suggest that the schools stop having before and after school programs and move the responsibility for overseeing kids back on their parents.

I also think that summer school should be done away with unless it becomes impossible to complete graduation requirements without it. Save this money for the school year.

Single parents? Encourage them to pair up with another single parent or relative to share parenting. I grew up believing that kids don’t need a parent at home full time. Then, when I had to stay home, all of us agreed it was great having me at home, and damn the money. We missed so much. I should point out I worked shifts that allowed us to have one parent at home, but still I would recommend no more that part time work for at least one parent. It is really hard to parent and work full time. Something falls through the cracks and it is often the kids.

I would also suggest that Hayward schools adopt a policy of requiring each child’s parent to spend say two hours a week helping out in their child’s classroom. Once parents all see the school in action, things will change.

The quarter is ending, I am preparing my students for advanced placement tests, graduation, coaching softball, tutoring. Doing my job. I did not know that you were awaiting my response. Thank you for all your years of service to Hayward and its children, keep stirring the pot. If you have a formula to increase community involvement in education, I’m in. Right now, I’m putting my effort into my students.

Hugh Lenahan

My three page three page letter to that teacher covered some large ground. I had also enclosed a copy of the March 17th article seen publiched in the SF Chronicle. In that story there was a report of the court decision regarding Pleasanton’s failure to observe ABAG’s goals especially ythe goals for low income fajmilies of which Hayward has consistently paaid heed to the need for low income housing.

My widowed mother found herself faced with funeral expenses for my father who left her with three sons aged 7, 4 and one (!) month early in year 1938.

1838 was tyhe year u=in which the depression peaked in California.

To put it bluntly, I knew waht it was to be poor, even to the extent that, unknown to her, I cut class 45 days out of a school year and had to repeat 7th grade for the folly of trying to help out by being employed as a newspaper boy for S.F. Examainer on a paper route which stretched from Fruitval eAve in the Dimond District of Oakland, in all that area above Mac Arthur Blvd., (then Hopkins St.) to High St.

Mother passed 12 years after father and all looked to me!

So, yes, Mr. Lenihan angered me with his crack about this blog being a bully pulpit for me.

Hell, all I am trying to do is create the feeling that Hayward needs to wake up, that parents in some homes need object lessions in parenting, that school district needs a ton of volunteer effort and that through the device of a ‘Town Hall meeting’ we might all eventuate to seeing some effective solutions and greater involvment of the public!

However, after a full week in his possession, there seems no response is to come.

The only thing I know about mr. Lenihan is that he draws a salary for his efforts at Tennyson High school as a teacher of Social Studies, while failing to understand that the problems of HUSD occur largely outside the classroom!

A RESPONSE IS IN THE US MAIL AND SHOULD BE AT THE ‘OFFICE’ ON FRIDAY’S DELIVERY!

I WONDER WHATEVER GAVE YOU THE IDEA THAT I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN THE ARENA !

You fail to recognize my freedom of speech which may reflect upon your personal skills as a techer. Does it?

Do not refuse recognition of the fact that HUSD needs help and if that help arrives in the form of assistance through an awakening of the responsibilitty imposed upon the general public toward it’s public schools, … what is your beef?

If in a town hall meeting that obvious need for greater public interest and support can be awakend so as to meet society’s need to exhibit greater care for fduture genbearations of students.

Do you have time or remaining effort to chase down those playiong hooky at our high schools?

I am advised that on any given day 7% of HUSD high school students are absemnt from class! That equates to loss of $1,000,000 per year!

Are you so blind that you are unaware of that loss of support? That requires a need to address the problem ot failing that, should I leave it and let you deal with the need to bring parents to task on that subject?

I never have read the book you suggest that I re-read.

Lend me a copy?

There is a great deal of confusion among school faculties about who will have jobs, who will be our administrators, our ability to exercise academic freedom being handcuffed by standardized measurements. Our lives are being effected, we are stakeholders.

I would like to ask you to reread “the man in the arena” by Theodore Roosevelt. I am sure you are familiar with its message. There is quite a lot of finger pointing going around and there is enough blame for everybody. But we do get our job done, many of my seniors are receiving there acceptance notices to four year universities. For a few of my students UCLA is their safety school, so good work is being accomplished. I don’t believe that should be marginalized.

Hugh Lenahan
Social Studies
Tennyson High School

The pro-active idea behind the TOWN HaLL Meeting which I am attempting to promote, is pro-active in the sense that it turns to the public WHICH IN ALL PROBABILIYTY is proactive in aid of the budget. Solve the budget problem by soloving the bleeding around, (as an example), ‘hhoky’ which at the high scholl level alone sees a drain of $1,000,000 in ANNUAL MONEY LOSS.

I SEE NO ACCEPTANCE OF THE town hall IDEA FROM THOSE WHO SUFFER MOST….. TEACHERS AND PARENTS WHO COMPlAIN THE LOUDEST.

Hoping for a magical school board much like the Irish in their stories about the pot of Gold??

wHY DO ‘THEY’ REFUSE RECOGNITION OF THE FACT THAT PARENTS AND PARENTING ARE PROBABLY THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM WHILE THE GENERASL PUBLIC, I.E. THOSE WITHOUT STUDENTS IN HUSD OR WHOSE YOUNGSTERS PAST THROUGH THE INSTITUTION 20 YEARS AGO OR MORE, ARE STANDING AROUND THE RIM OF THIS UNDISCIPLINED ‘MONEY PIT’ WONDERING HOW THEY CAN HELP?

I CAN ONLY GUESS THAT THOSE TEACHING ARE SO OBSESSED WITH THE FACT THAT THEY ARE EDUCATED WELL BEYOND THE GENERAL PUBLIC THAT THEY CAN NOT SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES, TO WHICH THEY STAND TOO CLOSE!

REMINDS ME OF THE UNFORTUNATE LIFE OF A HIGH SCHOOL CLASSMATE, WHOSE BRILLIANCE TOOK HIM THROUGH THE UNIVERSITYLEVEL TO BECOME A GRADUATE “SUMMA CUM LAUDE”.

POST GRADUATE WORK AT HARVARD COMPLETED, HE SET OUT INTO THE WORLD….. AND WAS UNABLE TO HOLD DOWN A JOB AS A TELLER AT A BRANCH OF THE BANK OF AMERICA. EVENTUATED TO ‘MANAGING AN ESTATE’ BUT CAGHED DRINKS AT A CLASS RE-UNION.

HIS COUSIN PRIVATELY ADVISED NOT TO BUY HIM A SECOND DRINK AD THEN WENT ON TO STATE THAT THE ESTATE TAHT HE, THE TROUBLED CLASSMATE, MANAGED WAS A 50 X 100 FOOT LOT UPON WHICH SAT AN 80 YEAR OLD HOUSE IN WEED,CALIFORNIA. a GIFT FROM HIS MOTHER’S ESTATE.

THE POINT? THE TEACHERS HAVE BEEN WHINING FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS AND HAVE YET TO LEARN THEIR NEED TO TURN TO THE PUBLIC…. NOT FOR HELP IN COMPLAINING TO THE TRUSTEES BUT FOR REVELATION OF LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL IN AID OF INCOME GENERATION ON A NON-COMPULSIVE BASIS.

HOW DOU THINK THE PROCHIAL SCHOOLS SURVIVED EVEN DURING THE DAYS WHEN THEY PAID REAL ESTATE TAXES azssessed againts their schoolos, here in ‘liberal California’ IN SUPPORT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS? ( WHICH PRACTICE WENT ON UNTIL MID 1960′Sm, after the third state wide vote on that subject!)

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO YOU…. OPEN YOUR MINDS TO THE IDEA THAT A TOWN HALL MEETING MIGHT SEE US OVER THE CRISIS PRESENTLY BEING EXPERIENCED.

YOU.. ( we) SIT UPON RESOURCES, THE DISPOSITION OF WHICH IS NOT PROPERLY ADDRESSED…. DELAY IN LEASE OF THE LAND UNDER THE DARWIN SCHOL SITE IS NOW PROBABLY HINDERED BY STILL ANOTHER CHARTER SCHOOL DISCUSSION!

I SPENT OVER $250. DOLLARS OF MY OWN MONEY IN PRESENTING A DEVELOPMENT IDEA WHICH THE GREAT DR. VIGIL REPUTEDLY ADMIRED BUT DIS-MISSED WITH HIS USUAL REMARK UITILIZED FOR THAT PUROPOSE…I. E. “I’LL GET BACK TO YOU LATER !”

WELL TEACHERS, HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT FOR THAT EXCERCISE IN MENTAL MASTURBATION?

WISE UP !RISE UP’,. ASSIST DEVELOPMENT OF A TOWN HALL MEETING, WHILE BEING INTELIGENT ENOUGH TO AVOID DOMINATING THE ACT!

ENCOURAGE AN EVENT WHERE THE GENERAL PUBLIC, (I.E. THE VOTERS) WILL TALK THEMSELVES INTO BEIING PRO-ACTIVE IN AID OF THE MONEY PROBLEM. LIKE.AS A STARTER, CHASING DOWN FAMILIES WHICH PERMIT INCIDIOUS HOOKY PLAYING GAMES