Dear LGSUHSD Board of Trustees,

It is with a heavy heart that the Saratoga High School (SHS) Parents, Redwood Middle School Parents (many will be incoming to LGSUHSD), Los Gatos High School (LGHS) Parents, Alumni Families, and the Los Gatos - Saratoga Community have yet again resorted to another petition requesting the Superintendent be professional in his attempt to lead the schools in this small district, and learn that successful governance requires engaging with stakeholders. We are asking you, the Board of Trustees, to do your due diligence by fact checking the Superintendent and ensuring he fulfill his responsibilities without arrogance, have a commitment to serve, not retaliate against employees, staff, students or community members as they tirelessly seek an audience to proactively problem solve ‘created’ problems, and, are still today, unable to secure an appointment, forcing them to use other means of engagement.

The district is implementing changes that negatively affect the schools without the consultation of its community. The district has also misinformed the community and the board to justify these changes affecting the overall education and school climate.

Such changes include the non sponsoring of international trips for school programs, unnecessarily removing PE Exempt possibilities for interscholastic freshmen student athletes and on top of that, the district office (DO) is growing in personnel while losing teachers to neighboring districts due to our teachers’ pay not being competitive.

The District’s Proposition is not to Support SCHOOL Sponsored International Trips

The district refuses to meet with key stakeholders to address the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District’s (LGSUHSD) intention to move away from school sponsored international travels. A small group of parents have started to reach out to members of the board of trustees hoping to encourage the open dialog and implore them to firmly encourage the Superintendent to sit down with leading stakeholders to work toward a solution enabling the decades long tradition of international travel as a school sponsored event. To be clear, the Superintendent should have met with key members (educators from both LGHS and SHS, and principals and music booster presidents from both schools) BEFORE proposing ANY change to long standing traditional practices.

We do hope when board member candidates step up to serve they understand the community is relying on them to protect the values their school community holds dear. To the supporters of this petition we remind you elections do matter. We need to elect officials whose visions align with the community and direct a Superintendent to realize those visions.

What are the problems:

1. Lack of transparent communication with the schools and community
2. Arbitrary decisions are taken that negatively affect the community by shutting stakeholders out
3. Incorrect information is offered to the board of trustees to justify changes of policy
4. Incorrectly justify adding changes to a long standing international field trip board policy to attempt to make current non-school sponsored trips comply with school rules
5. Incorrectly suggest SMB take on the responsibility of an international SCHOOL trip
6. Our teachers are underpaid: On May 28th, 2024 your LGSUHSD Board will hold a closed session at 5:30pm where teachers will sit down to negotiate their salaries (This link serves for point 6 and 7)
7. Incorrect setting to bring in a lawyer: On May 28th, 2024 your LGSUHSD Board will hold a regular board meeting starting at 6:30pm and have a lawyer come as guest speaker to address international field trips

Why is our district so dysfunctional?

It is important to understand the responsibilities of a superintendent who is the only employee hired by the board of trustees. An article in the Saratoga Falcon News clearly defines the responsibilities of any superintendent:

‘The superintendent’s responsibility here is to garner perspectives from all stakeholder groups — students, staff and parents — to make well-informed proposals for action.’

Board of trustees, you have not been receiving well-informed proposals as your employee is unable or unwilling to garner perspectives from all stakeholders.

In the same Saratoga Falcon News article the interviewee closes by saying:

'So I try, every time that I’m out, to engage with people and have conversations with folks and be real. They need to see that there’s a real person behind the person that’s making decisions every day about the district.'

Clearly this ‘real person’ is making his own decisions and you, the board of trustees, are giving him free reign. We understand you see your employee as, and we quote, ‘a real good guy’. Not hard to believe when spoken from the employers’ perspective but some in the community may beg to differ.

Track records are important when evaluating an employee

• Just shy of a few months into his tenure a petition was circulated because of the unwillingness to have sit down meetings with affected individuals. A cup of coffee would have gone a long way and probably would have resolved things diplomatically without the need to contract out a private investigator to help solve a district problem.
• Caused the Los Gatos Music Department great stresses as their international trip was constantly being denied between long periods of silence, after asking for input, to modify the proposal to ensure its approval. When responses to their questions finally came in and ‘corrected’ proposals were resubmitted they were always faced with ever changing reasons for more denials. It was not until leading figures from both music department schools and the joining of forces with Saratoga Music Boosters and Los Gatos High School Music Boosters that this trip was approved as a school sponsored field trip.
• The Sporting community at Saratoga High School was denied by the board of trustees their request to have the new district stance to reject PE Exemption for Students to be heard as an agenda item. Here again the appropriate engagement from affected stakeholders was not sought before mandating the change.
• While the LGSUHSD office is growing in personnel our teachers are considering leaving because their pay is not competitive. Even though Measure A passed, the district is choosing to invest in the wrong areas to the detriment of the quality of the education.
• The hiring of contractors and consultants by the district office is worrying when the benefits are not directly related to education. Why continue to outsource the district’s responsibility? This will only result in recommendations from outsiders who do not understand our schools and push an agenda that our schools will most likely not identify with.
• There seems to be a trend to bully teachers/staff who have rightly spoken up because they are unable to engage with the superintendent. Be aware of character attacks to justify a negative action such as removing an individual who dares challenge a position. Reprimands have been sent out to teachers/staff and yet you, board of trustees, did not reprimand your only employee when he publicly admonished a community member in a SHS Parent Teacher Student Organization general meeting. No student/teacher/staff/community member should be reprimanded or retaliated against for trying to work with you and the superintendent. Our schools do not accept bullying but the bullying coming from the district is particularly felt when ‘institutional knowledge’, provided by tenured teachers or staff, is ignored because it does not align with the goals of this dysfunctional leadership.

This petition requests:

• More transparency, 
• More diligence from the board,
• End retaliations coming from the district, 
• Ensure any superintendent engages with the community, 
• Accept SHS PE Exemption for student athletes, 
• Return to fully supporting school sponsored international field trips, and
• Offer competitive pay to our teachers.
         

                                                      Thank you for your attention,

                                                     Los Gatos-Saratoga Community

For more in depth information on each of the points you may click on:

Underpaid Teachers
District’s desire to stop supporting District Sponsored International Field Trips
Interscholastic SHS Athletic Freshmen Students Lose PE Exempt Opportunity
Just a 5 minute online search can raise concern