Monrovia School Link ~ Number 138 ~ September 9, 2005I met with Ed Gililland, the final Monrovia School Board candidate. The interview is below. (Someone wrote me recently to say she had only seen four interviews and that there are five candidates. Well, I did one of the interviews, with Clarence Shaw, way back in February, when I first discovered he was a candidate. You can see it
here, a ways down the page.) Also, there are a couple letters below.
~ brad@sacklunch.net
Ed Gililland grew up in New Mexico, went to New Mexico State University and, aside from two years in the Army, has spent his working life in the U.S. Forest Service, where he works as an engineer.
He moved to Monrovia 12 years ago from Glendora. He said his wife's children were in school in Monrovia, so he moved here rather than his wife moving to Glendora.
Gililland said he became involved in community affairs about 10 years ago, when he attended the community Leadership Academy, a 9 or 10-week, once-a-week course that introduced participants to the city and school governments, the chamber of commerce, and other community organizations.
He gravitated to the schools because his wife's sons were attending Monrovia High. They became involved in the PTA and in the boosters club when the boys started playing football. From there he got involved in the Schoolwide Planning Committee to help the district evaluate various programs, and then became a member of the district's Policy Agenda Committee.
Gililland said he wasn't planning to run this time (he ran in the last election), but when he saw that only two people were on the ballot, he decided to give it another shot. He said he doesn't care about any other elected office - the board isn't a stepping stone for him - but that he just cares about the community and the kids.
During the last election I didn't endorse Gililland because I felt that what the board really needed at that time was a stiff dose of smelling salts to wake it up to its responsibility to lead the staff rather than being led by the staff, and I didn't feel he was the best one to do that. Intelligent and dedicated, yes. Someone to awaken the board? Well, I didn't think so.
For that reason I was kinda taken aback by this next comment.
There's a perception in the community, Gililland said, that Superintendent Louise Taylor runs the district and the board just acts as a rubber stamp. He said he doesn't subscribe to this belief, but added that the board does needs to be more actively in charge.
O-kay. I'm liking this. Not what I expected to hear, but I like it, even though I think that leadership is less of a problem now than before Chesley and Wong joined the board.
Anyway, Gililland said that the most important task for the board now is to find a good person to be the next Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum; in other words, a replacement for Joel Shawn. "That job," he said, "is key."
In addition, he said the board should monitor programs the district implements to make sure they're working right, and replace them if they don't, and board members need to be available to the community, by being out there with meeting people, and by being available to people by phone and email.
And talking about being in touch with the community apparently reminds Gililland of one way that he's not connected.
"I need to get on your mailing list," he said.
"I'm surprised you're not already," I responded. How come?
Wellll, he said, he has seen some of the newsletters, but "you've been negative on some things," and besides, he said, he attends a lot of the meetings himself, so he has a pretty good idea of what is happening.
But back the the board job. Gililland says his top priorities would be safety for the kids and getting the right teachers and resources in place.
He said the district needs to work with the police department to make sure students are safe, and this, he feels, includes bus service. He cites a student athlete at MHS who quit his sport because playing would mean he'd have to walk home after dark. Gililland said that while the district dodged the bullet and was able to reinstate bus service this year, the problem still looms. Before he would vote to cut the bus service, he said, he'd need to know that the children who rely upon it would have some other safe way to school.
By "getting the right teachers and resources in place," his other priority, Gililland means that the board should oversee the overseers and make sure the budget is being allocated properly.
Some other tasks, he said, are to upgrade the school facilities and work with the city on upgrading the public library, which, while not under school jurisdiction, is education related.
Okay, a few last questions:
Could he get along with the two incumbents, Clare Chesley and Bryan Wong?
"Absolutely," he said. He said he's worked with Wong and has "a lot of respect for Clare. They're clear thinkers."
What about the attorney general's opinion that the schools must let students out of school for medical treatments without their parents' knowledge?
He said he's glad the board and parents have stood up against it. Parents, he said, need to know where their children are. If there are problems of possible child abuse, he said, that is what Child Protection Services is for, and the schools' job in that event should be to report suspected cases.
Do you have time to serve on the board?
"I work for the federal government," he said. I burst out laughing, but he wasn't quite done. "And," he said, "we have flex time," so he can arrange his work schedule around his board duties.
Finally, under Gililland's leadership, the Big M Boosters has been working for a couple years to build a new snack bar/restrooms building at MHS. How's that going?
He said that hopefully the final hurdle should be overcome on Sept. 22, when the state's Department of Architecture signs off on the plans. Lots of supplies are in place to start as soon as that happens.
Now my thoughts.
Although I was impressed with what Gililland said in our interview, I've been more impressed with what I've seen over the years. He pretty well got trounced in the last election (he doesn't like campaigning, he told me), but instead of saying "Ah, the heck with it," he kept right at the big task of getting that snackbar/restrooms building built. And he tells me he'll keep on even if he doesn't get elected this time. I believe that. He's clearly intelligent, has a good history of involvement with and knowledge about the district. He mentioned that the most important task of the board is to select a new assistant superintendent of curriculum. That point grew on me as I thought about it. Curriculum is what students learn, which is, after all, the whole point of having schools. Duh! How could I have missed that? On the other side, while it is a very small sin not to subscribe to this newsletter, and while he may disagree with some of the opinions expressed here, it seems someone interested in the district should at least have wanted to hear these opinions. But as he pointed out, he has his ear to the ground in other ways. And anyway, we took care of his subscription problem.
LETTER: NEED FOR BUSES ~ I'd like to respond to the letter about parents' responsibility in getting their children to school. I whole-heartedly agree with you that parents should be completely responsible for their own child. If there were no buses, these parents would get their children to school. However, a lot of them would get them there by walking them to school, or allowing them to walk by themselves. Some of them would have to walk three miles to get to school every morning. Do you realize how far that is for a 5-10 year old child? I've seen a classmate of my son's pass my house at 7 a.m. He probably leaves his house at 6:45 to get to school on time. The worst part is, the school he is supposed to go to is at least a mile further than the school he is attending. I'm not generally a liberal person, but I live fairly close to Duarte Road, and see these families walking not only to school, but also to the market for groceries. None of Monrovia's schools are located in the poorest areas of Monrovia. A lot of these parents either don't drive, or don't have a car. These children would have to cross Duarte Road, Huntington Blvd., Mayflower Ave., Myrtle Ave, and lots of other busy streets between home and school. There are no crossing guards, and soon the time will change and the children would be walking in the dark.
I'm all for taking care of yourself, and being responsible for your own welfare, but we keep talking about how to raise our test scores. We're certainly not going to raise them if the children are tired when they arrive at school in the morning. We'd also lose money every time a child missed school, because they couldn't get to school that day for whatever reason.
I also find it interesting how the parents who want to keep school nurses, are for the most part, not interested in keeping busing. It would cost the same amount of money and service - on a regular basis - fewer children. Yet no one has a problem with that!
I 'm not trying to find fault with anyone's opinion, I'm just trying to present a side that maybe not everybody has looked at. I agree that it gets tiring hearing about all the people who can't take care of themselves, but being in the middle between the lower half and the upper, I get tired of hearing both sides bickering. I know sometimes I pass judgement without having all the information. For all of you who think the busing issue isn't important please consider all of the facts before you pass judgement. Try to think about the kids; it's not their fault they're in this situation, and remind your kids to be thankful, for they were born into a better situation. (By the way, neither of my children ride the bus.)
- Erin Thorn
LETTER: BUSES KEEP EDUCATION INCLUSIVE ~ I have just read the letter about buses from Janis Johnson. I wasn't sure whether or not to seriously address that letter, but found I couldn't resist.
A public school education is for everyone. Some people must work odd hours to make ends meet. Some are too poor to own a car, and the school is too far away to walk to. To deny those people's children an education is to make an education exclusive. We would then be a society divided by education and money. Those who could afford to get their children to school would be the fortunate, educated ones. And those with living situations that make it impossible to get their children to school would be the unfortunate and uneducated ones. We would be growing an educated, but indifferent population in one part of town, and a poor, uneducated and increasingly oppressed population in the other.
Eventually, we may even forget what our founding fathers believed so stronly that they created a country based on that belief: that we are all created equally, and thus, heirs to some unalienable rights, regardless of our fortunate or unfortunate inheritance.
Its all very simple, basic, human decency, and common sense really. I hope I got my point across.
- Louise Carnevale
Also on the Web at www.monroviaschoollink.com.