To the Yolo County Board of Education,
I am a Valley Oak (VO) Elementary School
parent, and I have a sixth grader and a first grader who attend the school and love it, and I support the VO Charter School.
As a psychiatrist who specializes in Cultural Issues and as a former teacher, I can see firsthand that Valley Oak is a school
that works. The school's students represent the colors of the rainbow in its ethnic diversity. The learning atmosphere
is warm, nurturing, and accepting. Presenting to you for approval the VO Charter is just the latest step in our fight to keep
our school open, dating back to Martin Luther King Day, 2007.
It has two unique elements that no other elementary
school in Davis has:
1) A high achieving English Learner's Program that has placed former monolingual Spanish
speaking students in mainstream classes and
2) Two strands of self-contained Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) courses
for 4, 5, and 6.
I enrolled my son as a transfer because of the GATE program, and I have not been disappointed.
What is unique about the VO Charter School? The school will be BETTER than the current school, because it will add
an emphasis on technology that the old school did not have. Eighteen teachers and over 200 students and parents support this
school. Why is that? Because they believe in what it stands for, inclusiveness, and responsible students. There have
been no bullying incidents, no hate crimes, no violence. It is everything I would want in an elementary school for my
children.
Closing this school denies equal access to education for the children in this centrally located, predominately
affordable neighborhood, and puts the burden of traveling farther to school on those who least can shoulder it. The
detrimental effects will be widespread, as friends will be separated between four different schools.
The VO Charter
was denied by the Davis Joint Unified School District (DJUSD) board despite the recommendation of its superintendent that
it be accepted, and wasted all of the good faith negotiation and work to answer to some of its criticisms, and ultimately
was denied on the basis of the District's financial crisis, a reason in my understanding, that can not a legal ground
for rejection, and they rejected THEIR OWN CURRICULUM, that was perfectly acceptable the year before.
My feeling
is that the decision was not terribly surprising, since it would have reversed the DJUSD's first decision to close the
school last year, despite some rather specious and suspicious arguments, and building a new elementary several years before
in an affluent neighborhood and opening it last year. Why would you close a functioning school and open a new one? Because
new is BETTER?
I disagree with that logic. Schools have history and a culture all their own, and VO
works. I am asking for your support for these teachers who are fighting to keep their school open. Why are they
doing this? Because they care for their students, and they want what's best for them, and they are willing to run
the school themselves to do it. And I am willing to send my daughter there, because I want her to be inspired by these
teachers, as I have been by their dedication, devotion, enthusiasm, and their desire to do the right thing for this neighborhood
that does not deserve to lose its school.
As far as I can see, there are no reasons to deny the charter, as the
educational plan is sound and is an improvement upon the current one. It has the support of the teachers, the students and
the parents. Give these talented, experienced, motivated, and driven teachers the chance to show you what they can do
with a school. They were doing it before, and they will do it again, with or without the DJUSD's support.
I
am asking for your positive vote on this charter. Even Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada is on the public record
as being in support of the VO Charter School. Do the right thing. Support a Charter School that has been designed by
teachers who WANT to serve their neighborhood.
Isn't that what you would want to see in your child's
school? TEACHERS, PARENTS, AND STUDENTS WILLING TO FIGHT FOR THEIR SCHOOL? Activism is not dead; it is alive and well in Davis.
Support the VO Charter! Vote to approve it for the children in Central Davis, who need a well functioning centrally
located neighborhood elementary school that support diversity.
Thank you for your attention.
Russell
Lim, MD, M.Ed.
Check out the VO Charter at
www.vocharter.org and the Davis OPEN (Organization of Parents for Education in the Neighborhood) at
www.davisopen.org, and the People's Vanguard of Davis at
http://davisvanguard.blogspot.com/search/label/Valley%20Oak.
