June 16, 2006

Evergreen SchoolScene

Campos to submit memo on Cortese allegations to rules committee

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

On June 15, District 5 City Councilmember Nora Campos submitted a memo to the city's Rules Committee calling for an investigation into allegations against District 8 Councilmember and former mayoral candidate Dave Cortese. It will be heard at the June 21 Rules Committee meeting.

Cortese was unaware Campos was planning to submit the memo. He had no comment on June 14 when the Times learned the memo would go to the Rules Committee.

The allegations state Cortese directed staff in a memo, which is against the city charter, and that he lied to the council about meetings with lobbyists and developers involved in the Evergreen Visioning Project in District 8.

Cortese denies both charges, which were first discussed at a May 9 City Council meeting. At that time, the council agreed to uphold city policy and send the issues to the rules committee before the full council discussed them.

Campos, said her chief of staff Maya Esparza, decided to wait until after the election to take the issue to the Rules Committee.

"We have finished going through the process and the election is over," said Esparza. “That should prove that the allegations are not politically motivated.” Councilmember Cortese will have more than minimal time to respond and the rules committee will make the decision on June 21 whether to bring the issues forward or not.

The timing of the allegations caused Cortese supporters and others to allege the accusations were a political ploy to muddy Cortese's reputation less than a month before the mayoral election. The allegations were first brought out by Campos and signed by District 10 City Councilmember Nancy Pyle. Both support Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez for mayor.

The crux of the accusation lies in a quote from Cortese in a city council meeting a year ago on May 17 when he said, “I haven't met with the developers’ lobbyists on this issue at all.”

But, Cortese told the Times after the May 9 council meeting, “the issue” wasn’t the Evergreen development in general, as Campos asserts. It was the very specific topic that was on the council meeting agenda that night; which was reconstituting what is now known as the Evergreen East Hills Visioning Strategy Task Force, a group making recommendations to the city council on the project.

“I seldom if ever have met with lobbyists on any issue over the last five years,” he said.

However, Campos claims to have several lobbyist reports which claim they met with Cortese.

In response, Cortese says the system by which lobbyists report their activities is flawed. He contends that lobbyists will report that attending a public meeting, dropping off a memo or leaving a phone message can be considered lobbying activity. But these aren’t private meetings, Cortese said, and there is no penalty for lobbyists who over report their activities.

Inside the lobbyist reports on file with the city clerk there are no explanations about what goes on at a meeting between a lobbyist and city official, just a list of contacts, a subject and a rough number of “meetings.”

Evergreen Valley High School Principal Tim McDonough to retire

Administrator served ESUHSD for 35 years

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

Evergreen Valley High School principal Tim McDonough is retiring in June from the East Side Union High School District, where he has made his career for the past 35 years.

Tim McDonough, Evergreen Valley High principal.

The administrator, who is known for his work in turning schools around, plans to move to rural Idaho, a place “I really enjoy,” he said.

He and his wife plan to settle on five acres where he can be a private person and do a little fishing.

“It’s a beautiful area and I’m looking forward to seeing what uncivilized living is like,” he said.

McDonough began his teaching career in 1970 as a student teacher at Overfelt High School where he taught some social studies classes, but mostly English, he said. He initially graduated from San Jose State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science and a minor in English. He received his teaching credential from SJSU in 1971. He also received a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from UC Berkeley and a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration from Santa Clara University.

In 1976, he was selected as part of a group of teachers to open Independence High School. He remained there until 1990, when he began teaching at a small continuation high school called Pegasus, which was on the Independence campus. The students, he said, had fallen behind on their credits because truancy and other family problems were hampering their success.

He remained at Pegasus until 1996 when he was named a villa [assistant] principal at Foothill High School. In July of 2000, he came full circle, returning to Overfelt once again as the school’s principal for four years. In January 2004 he was tapped by the East Side Union district to reform Evergreen Valley into a more traditional high school. The latter school had been designed to be four small schools on one campus, but the program wasn’t working out well.

Moving to traditional
McDonough stepped in and turned the school into a traditional campus and one of the shining lights of the ESUHSD. It was a noble experiment, he said, referring to the small school concept, “but it just wasn’t working. The school’s students wanted to make thousands of schedule changes at the beginning of each semester. When I arrived, the school was over $600,000 in the red with staffing changes. My job was to make Evergreen into a traditional, stable school system while minimizing the changes and disruptions.”

“No one was to blame [for the problems]. The school was just trying to do too much. There were good intentions on everyone’s part, but the implementation wasn’t well considered. There was no one lead principal for the entire school and things unwound quickly,” he added.

“No one was to blame [for the problems]. The school was just trying to do too much. There were good intentions on everyone’s part, but the implementation wasn’t well considered. There was no one lead principal for the entire school and things unwound quickly,” he said.

McDonough wants to concentrate on the positives that came out of what could be termed a failed experiment.

“I believe the administration, the community, the students and families and the teachers and administration all wanted the very best for this school. The failures were implementation failures related to a school vision that would not work. I absolutely believe the plan was doomed from the beginning and although district administration should have known better, [they] had the experience from Independence High School 25 years earlier, they wanted to step out and go for the best possible cutting edge structure and program possible,” McDonough said.

He is proud of how the students, their parents, the teachers and the school administrators conducted themselves during and after undergoing the school’s changes. He cites a complete lack of contentiousness and disarray by those involved.

“Teachers came together to focus on curriculum and instruction, students and families focused on achievement and high expectations,” McDonough said. “The results can clearly be seen in the performances in classes, on the CAHSEE, on STAR and in our API. Most important, our community with few exceptions continues to view this high school as the clear school of choice for their children. I provided a structure and support for stability and clear communications with the community.  Now the challenge is to take stability to the next level and look at what can and should be done over time to improve and continue the excellence. I am certain that will occur.”

The first thing McDonough and his staff did was get rid of the small school concept, which took about a semester. He then instigated equitable rules and expectations throughout the entire school.

“Instead of having departments, we created interdisciplinary studies because we needed an aligned curriculum,” he said. “We established school-wide departments for English, science, social studies math and so forth. Teachers met and identified the course and what they would be teaching, what text they would use and determined to what extent they could do common assessments. We needed the assurance that each student would receive the opportunity to learn and get the best instruction possible.”

The school has grown from its initial 900-student population, to 2,500 today. Currently, there are portable classrooms in use on campus because of the student increase, and a new building is going up too. About 100 students are working at Evergreen Valley College, some taking high school/college academic programs and the others, primarily from other district high schools, are working in the district’s Accel Program.

Turning around other schools
When he first came to Foothill High, “it was a mess. I had the luxury of watching and listening. I spent a semester doing that and then worked with terrific teachers and administrators who helped put programs in place. The school has since won two Robotic National Championships,” he said with pride.

His job at Overfelt was to pull up the students’ performance. The problem, he said, was the cirriculum was planned to achieve 29 goals and objectives, which were far too many. McDonough pared down the goals and centered those left on instruction, reading and math.

“I got the staff experienced to work together and be honest about what they did and didn’t do,” he said. “Another goal was to follow through on department commitments.”

Early life
McDonough kept himself from the administrative part of secondary education because he was born to a military family. Before his sophomore year in high school, McDonough had moved from Kentucky, to Germany, and then to Santa Clara, where his father taught ROTC at Santa Clara University, before packing up once more to head to Oklahoma and then to Monterey, Calif. When his dad retired from the military, the family moved back to Santa Clara.

“All that traveling kept me from going into administration because I didn’t want to move” around a lot, he said.

At the age of 59 he plans one last move to Idaho. But he’s not really sure just how easy it’s going to be to retire.

“I’m a pretty social person on the outside, and I’m not really sure how much I’m going to miss the daily interactions with students and their parents,” he said. “But I’m also a private guy, who is used to working lots of hours. I’ve put in tons of hours; I ‘m also not sure how much I’m going to miss those hours of work.”

However, he’s pretty happy about his successor at Evergreen Valley. Cari Vaeth, who currently is principal of Independence High and director of adult education for the district, will take over the principal’s position at Evergreen Valley. She’s one of the few administrators who has held each of the assistant principal positions throughout her career, he said, adding that he expects her to do well at the school.

Evergreen School Teacher Receives WHO Award

Beverly Craig, a kindergarten teacher at Cadwallader School, was honored with the first annual WHO (We Honor Ours) Award.

The Evergreen Teachers Association (ETA) is recognizing Craig for the many ways she has supported and helped build the association. During the 30 years she has taught in the Evergreen School District, she has served on the Calendar Committee, Curriculum Committee, Policy Review Committee, Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), Textbook Selection Committee, and Mentor Selection Committee, which she chaired for over six years. In addition to the committee work, she has been an ETA representative for many years, Vice President of the association, and since 1993 has been on the bargaining team. Craig is a dedicated teacher who always strives to bring out the best in her students and fellow teachers. Evergreen Teachers Association is proud to honor Beverly Craig for her commitment.

The WHO Awards were sponsored by the Santa Clara County Service Center Council of the California Teachers Association. They were presented at a dinner meeting held at the Wyndham Hotel on May 30.