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Community Corner

RODRIGUEZ FLEES EHS FOR CUSHY JOB AT ASTI

Why is the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) allowing Brian Rodriguez to jump ship at Encinal High School (EHS) and paddle to the languid beaches of Alameda Science and Technology Institute (ASTI)?

 

He is making his exit from a school charged with educating the under-privileged: the “free or reduced lunch” contingent averages 70% of its demographic.

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EHS is an institute with more diversity than any school in the island.

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To his credit, Brian has been chosen as AUSD Teacher of the Year, Alameda Country Teacher of the Year and last August he received recognition by the Nobel Committee at one of the top ten teachers in America—certainly some of these awards were based on merit and not merely on his ability to successfully schmooze administrators and feign an obsequious, chameleon nature during faculty debates.

 

Why is AUSD allowing him to pack-up and abandon nearly 1200 students, primarily of color, for a cushy school of 172 over-achievers?

 

The timing is indeed ironic, given that on June 10, 2014, vociferous critics of the tenure system celebrated their first “major victory” over a system they claim puts the best teachers in the best schools and staffs the poorest, failing and low income schools with the worst teachers.

While Judge Rolf Treu of the Los Angeles County Superior Court is trying to reverse this trend by declaring tenure supportive elements of the California Education Code unconstitutional, incongruously AUSD is heading in the opposite direction.

 

AUSD is doing nothing conspicuous to intercept Rodriguez in his exodus from a challenging school to a school where 100% of the students go on to four-year colleges and need little more than a syllabus and a textbook to surmount their courses and gain admittance to a four year college.

 

Not only are the students of EHS losing the best teacher they could hope to find in the district, the county, indeed the country, but EHS teachers are losing a mentor, a leader, an advocate and one of the most compelling and cogent voices at faculty and committee meetings.

 

Certainly the more progressive, liberal and well-intentioned elements of the EHS faculty will attempt to blockade Brian’s egress; equity demands it.

 

Just recently no fewer than eight teachers, obviously in an attempt to intercept or dissuade Brian from scampering across the west end, from 210 Central Avenue to Easy Street, wrote letters of accolades for Brian’s many contributions to collegial collaboration and his professional enhancements to quality of life at EHS.

 

Arne Duncan, US Education Secretary, hailed Judge Rolf Treu’s decision as a step forward for students who are ill-served by tenure guarantees; what would Arne say were he to witness Brian covertly stripping his classroom, festooned with history artifacts, and unapologetically retreating to the profession comforts of ASTI; all this under the cover of the dog days summer and possibly during the administration’s vacation?

Obviously neither the Principal of EHS, the School Board nor the lame duck Superintendent have been apprised of Brian’s de facto dereliction of duty?

Not since Mike Cooper’s request for transfer from EHS was reluctantly approved has EHS lost such an educational leader.

Is AUSD leadership this pusillanimous that they can’t stop Brian?

Who approved his request for transfer?

Who exactly is aiding and abetting those forces that run counter to issues of equity, and would deprive the students of Encinal of such a widely recognized superlative educator?

 

Was this an oversight or the machinations of some Tea Partier ignoring the needs of 1200 students who arrive at EHS often bereft of even the most basic academic skills and leave Encinal college ready—indeed Harvard ready—thanks in no small part to Brian.

Were Brian to pull off this caper, it would be another major victory for the forces of mediocrity in public education.

Students at EHS deserve an opportunity to respond to the Rodriguez challenge; his AP pass rate is 20% higher than the national average.

 

Only a few years ago, Encinal lost a motivated teacher—Anne C.—when she was allowed to leap out of the trenches of Encinal and scurry to its cross town rival: Halcyon High.

Contrary to the AEA Contract, Ardella Dailey, the AUSD Superintendent from 2005 until 2008, flatly stated her goal was to keep high performing teachers at schools with the high concentrations of minorities.

Such a strategy would have served to narrow a stubborn achievement gap.

And yet even now, AUSD not found the necessary mechanisms to keep quality teachers where they best serve the interests of the most needy students.

Is the system that hog-tied, moribund or obtuse that it cannot staunch this hemorrhage of teaching talent, experience, proven success?

Were merit pay ever appropriate, it would be in this case, where it might prove instrumental in getting Brian to reconsider his move—no one is suggesting that Brian is an educational mercenary however.

Better yet; I say, “Cry havoc, unleash the Dogs of War; barricade the doors at Encinal—or at a minimum change the locks and don’t distribute the keys—until Brian consents to remain where he belongs and where he is most needed: at Encinal High.”

Hopefully, our lame-duck Superintendent will fulfill her promise to “leave the district a better place” by restoring Brian to Encinal High.

Jeffrey R Smith

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