By Tami Barrera

Parents of Deer Valley High School students gave the School Board an earful last night, expressing outrage at the plan to eliminate the co-principal model at the school in which Scott Bergerhouse and Clarence Isadore jointly run the school. The four-year, innovative partnership may be eliminated due to the need to make $4 million in budget cuts.

Distraught parents argued that the two principals have improved safety, school spirit and education at the school, adding, “Why are we eliminating a model that works?”

Jim Thompson said, “The atmosphere created by the two gentlemen, Clarence and Scott, is different today than four years ago.” Removing the co-principal model will place an indelible mark on the school society that it may not be able to recover from, he said. Thompson noted that the school board members took on their responsibility because they wanted to make a difference, and he called on them to rethink the elimination of the co-principals.

Other parents also questioned why Deer Valley, which was in a slump and chaos before the co-principals and is now on the right track, is having the co-principal model tossed by the wayside.

Superintendent Donald Gill responded that $4 million in cuts need to take place across the board due to a $1,000/student decrease in state education funding. In addition, enrollment at Deer Valley High has declined, he said.

In other action, it was announced that Dozier-Libbey Medical School is one of 97 schools in the state and one of only two schools in the county to receive the 2011 California Distinguished School award. Dozier-Libbey has also received the Exemplary Career Technical Education Program Award.

An update was provided on the progress of the widening of Highway 4, which may impact local roads and school commutes.

The Somersville Road construction began on March 16, and is scheduled to take about 2 1/2 years to complete. The Contra Loma Boulevard Interchange/G Street Overcrossing will begin construction in early 2012. The Lone Tree Way/A Street Interchange construction is slated to begin next spring. The Hillcrest Avenue Interchange will be the last segment and will be tied in to the construction of an eBART station. For more information visit www.widensr4.org or call 925-756-0721.

the attachments to this post:

DVHS Co-Principals

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.