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In This Issue...
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Driving Impaired: The Costs & Consequences
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Back in the Trenches
Gary Bloom Left a Satisfying Job Mentoring Teachers
to Take the Job as Santa Cruz City Schools' Chief
By Linda Fridy
For much of Gary Bloom's career in education, his resume read much the same as many others who leave the classroom to take on leadership roles. After earning a teaching credential from UC Santa Cruz, he moved from teacher to principal to district administrator — all in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.
The Pajaro district is the largest in Santa Cruz County, and arguably the most difficult to run considering the lack of voter-approved special taxes and the enormity of Pajaro's language challenges.
But Bloom left Pajaro, and became superintendent in the independent and small Aromas-San Juan school district.
Then he broke with tradition and tried something different, helping to create the New Teacher Center. He spent a decade at the UCSC-based project mentoring educators and sharing best practices across the state and nation.
The New Teacher Center grew from seven employees and a budget of about $750,000 to 150 employees with a $20 million budget, recently splitting from the university as a separate nonprofit entity.
"It's something very successful that I helped grow and am very proud of," he said.
So why leave and take a job that puts him back on the front lines of education's battle to increase student performance at the same time schools are losing millions of dollars in funding each year?
The short answer: people he respected asked him to apply. The other reasons have more to do with making education and educators better at the county's second largest district – Santa Cruz City Schools.
"It's home – I've been here, in Santa Cruz County, for the majority of my life," he said.
And while he loved the work at the New Teacher Center, it often took him to other parts of the state or country.
Coming Home
The Santa Cruz City Schools job allows Bloom to reconnect to the community.
"You are kind of disconnected when you are flying in as the expert and flying out again," he said.
His interest was not merely returning to any school district in the county – he likes what he's found at Santa Cruz City Schools.
The district has a lot going for it, he said. The demographics are similar to the state and it has the potential to be an example for California.
That example includes providing a broad-based education rather than narrowing the focus to math and language arts skills emphasized on standardized tests.
"[The district has] not gotten sucked into the No Child Left Behind basics of tests and books... The arts, music, science and libraries are also important and help students achieve in the basics," he said.
Part of the reason the district has survived drastic cuts in state funding is the district's voters. Voters extended a parcel that helps the district better fund classrooms.
Bloom adds that the community also supports city schools by volunteering.
Plus, "there are great, great teachers and administrators in the district," he said.
Finally, Santa Cruz City Schools has room for improvement, a quality important to someone who spent the last decade refining the approach to education.
"While it's good, it could be a whole lot better," he said with a smile.
Size Matters
Another advantage he sees to his new district is its size. Having worked in the county's largest district, Pajaro Valley Unified, and led the three-school Aromas-San Juan district in San Benito County, he says Santa Cruz City falls in the "sweet spot."
"It's the right size... Districts that are too big become bureaucratic, and you don't get to know everyone. If they're too small there are inadequate resources to serve all the students," he explained.
The size advantage also applies to the district's three high schools, he said: Soquel, Harbor and Santa Cruz.
Their enrollment of about 1,000 students each is optimal, Bloom believes, compared to typical comprehensive high schools with 2,000 to 3,000 enrolled, he said. Students can participate in activities like band and sports yet not be overwhelmed by the size of the student population.
With the district's open enrollment policy, Santa Cruz City students and those moving up from Soquel and Live Oak can choose among the three high schools. Highly motivated students can participate in the Humanities Academy at Soquel High or the Math Academy at Santa Cruz High. All the schools offer a variety of advanced placement courses, which give students the chance to earn college credit.
Bloom does not share the opinion of his predecessor, Alan Pagano, who has recently been advocating that the county's districts should band together in one large district.
"Consolidation is not a panacea and is not likely to happen in this county. We value our local control, local community," Bloom said.
Thoughts on PCS
If he likes the size and variety of the district's high schools, what does Bloom think about Pacific Collegiate School? That grade seven-through-12 charter school approached Santa Cruz City Schools for sponsorship when it formed just over a decade ago, and was turned down before the County Office of Education chartered it.
Recently, the district and PCS have had contentious negotiations over the former school site that the charter presently rents on Swift Street.
PCS's academically rigorous program attracts many more students than it can accommodate and wins it top national rankings among public schools.
"There's a lot of history there and I'm aware of it... I'm going out of my way to build strong communication with PCS because it's not going anywhere," he said.
Having such a high-achieving school within district boundaries inspires rather than threatens Bloom.
"I see PCS, and other charter and private schools, not as the enemy, but as competitors that challenge us to do a better job creating innovative programs and serving our students."
Bloom does believe there are PCS practices that differentiate PCS from other charter and public schools.
Is this a more friendly tone than former superintendent Pagano took with PCS? Yes.
However, he also takes time to chide the charter using a common jab that charter leaders loudly dispute as unfair and wrong.
"To be a truly effective charter, PCS does have some work to do serving a diverse student body and special education students. It also needs to figure out how to serve families without pressure to make large donations. I have some issues with that," he said.
Learning Another Language
One of the ways in which Santa Cruz City Schools mirrors the state is its large population of English learners who speak Spanish at home. Teaching this population remains a challenge for everyone in education.
"Our first priority with English language learners is to do a better job of serving these students. Santa Cruz City Schools is in the same boat as most districts in the state. Our English language learners are not achieving at the same rate as their English-only counterparts," he said.
The only way for these students to achieve at the highest levels is for them to master English and specifically academic English, Bloom said. However, if he ruled the world, children would not lose a native language in the process, but strengthen it.
He points with pride to the district's Spanish for Spanish-speakers classes that allow students to build reading and writing skills in their native tongue, permitting them to take and pass college-level advanced placement Spanish tests.
He, his wife (Cabrillo College trustee Katie Stonebloom) and their children are all bilingual by desire and education. "Being bilingual and biliterate is such an asset," he said.
Bloom himself did not learn to speak Spanish until he was well into his teens.
"I picked a lot of it up in kitchens working my way through college," he recalled.
His experience with bilingual education has uncovered no universal solution.
"There's not a best way to teach English learners. There are wonderful, effective bilingual programs and programs that have been disasters. The same is true with English immersion. It's about well-trained and committed teachers making the model work rather than the model itself," he said.
Money Matters
Improving student achievement and maintaining the district's well-rounded curriculum will likely become more difficult in the next few years as the state continues to face multi-billion-dollar deficits.
"The sky is falling," he said. "We are in a crisis in California."
His district faces about $3.4 million in cuts for 2010-11, and will likely have to make mid-year cuts in the near term on top of that. The year after will likely be even worse, he predicted.
"We've done a good job of protecting programs.
From the point of view of students and parents, there aren't many noticeable differences over the last three years," he said.
That will have to change.
"Every program has passionate advocates. We're not going to get through next year without reductions to programs that people are passionate about," he said, be they arts, class sizes or libraries.
With 90 percent of the budget going to salaries and benefits, cuts mean lost jobs or union concessions.
"There is tension within the unions between long-time employees whose salaries and benefits are protected versus newer employees who are most likely to be laid off. It's either lose jobs or lose money and benefits. We're [the district is] not able to intervene. It has to happen within the unions."
He added that the state has managed to "divide and conquer" by directing frustration at the local level.
"We shouldn't be blaming each other. We should be camping out in Sacramento," he said.
In order to bring California's per-pupil spending up to the national average, "we need to tell [legislators] that we value schools and are willing to pay taxes to support schools."
Goals for the Future
In spite of the financial challenges, the school board on Nov. 4 adopted five goals Bloom put forth to measure future success.
These metrics reflect the combination of broad goals and specific, incremental targets that make achievement measurable.
The district wants its students to be college ready, and toward that goal has established 12 targets. For example, last year 47.2 percent of students completed the course work required by the state's university systems. For this year, Bloom wants to see a 3 percent increase.
Other related targets focus on testing and even the number of high school parents following their students' progress through the online reporting system.
Toward the goal of creating motivated, well-rounded students, the district wants to see a 2 percent increase in attendance and a 5 percent drop in suspensions, plus five other targets.
Achievement gaps between demographic groups will be addressed by improving the number of English learners who pass the high school graduation proficiency tests on the first try, for example.
Bloom wants to develop a "highly collaborative professional culture" by asking half of all teachers to participate in peer observations annually and all principals and assistant principals to stop in a dozen classrooms a week.
To maintain a balanced budget and efficient, effective management, goals include reducing enrollment lost to private and charter schools by 5 percent and revising the budget process.
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