This year marks the end of a long relationship with Leland High School. I graduated from Leland in 1975, my daughter 2009 and finally my son this year. Having graduated from Leland in 1975, I attended University of California at Davis and then attended Northwestern University in Chicago where I received my DDS. After getting married in 1983, we agreed to move to South San Jose in 1984 because of the highly rated school district I grew up in—specifically Leland High School. We were willing to pay a premium to buy a house in South San Jose to be in the Leland-Bret Hart school district.
This blog entry is not to honor Leland, but to put it to sleep. Has anybody noticed the free fall from grace that Leland High School has been in since 2007? With the two major scandals rocking the school in the last two month, its seems everyone is just now noticing something that I have been seeing these last 5 years. The administration and teachers of Leland are failing to lead and inspire. There has been a total breakdown in the Leland High School Legacy. School Pride is gone. Most of the good tenured faculty have left Leland or are now too old to care. We no longer rule Speech and Debate. And academically, private high schools with populations of South San Jose kids, are consistently bettering us academically as well as athletically. Yes there are a few individual exceptions, Its not often you have a student accepted to Harvard, Princeton and Stanford, but Ive known that family since kindergarten and and work ethic and achievement runs strong in that family outside of Leland High School and Leland does not deserve credit for that. Leland has never been lacking in highly intelligent and motivated high school students—especially with the ethnic diversity shifting towards cultures that value education with its current 58% minority enrollment. Leland high school does not care about the remaining 42% mid and lower achieving students. For many of the really smart kids at Leland, school is like a video game with the goal being a trophy college admission. Some kids are naturally brilliant and other are clever enough to beat the system at Leland—the recent cheating scandal at Leland is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gaming the administration for better grades. There are instances of unreported cheating—in one situation, a high ranking, popular ASB officer was caught taking pictures of a test and it went unreported even though he was caught in the act. Leland prides itself on high achieving students but they didn’t create them.
The way a school motivates and educates the borderline student is what defines the quality of the school. A borderline student is a student who has a grade that is close to a B—78% to 79.9%. If your child falls into this category, Leland High School is toxic. The “school policy” of not returning test illustrates the apathy and lazyness of the teachers at Leland. Once you fall behind, you are gone. To college admissions, the difference between a C+ and a B- is a full point—it is either a 3 or a 4 and not a 2.5 vs a 2.7. A student with too many B’s has no chance of getting into a good UC. The traditional fall back UC—US Santa Cruz- had an average admission standard this year of 3.8. With today’s college admission standards at such a high level, a C or B grade in and AG class is a virtual death sentence to anyone wishing to attend a quality UC. This is why many Leland students to drop classes if they feel they are getting C’s despite tutoring and teacher confernences.. Instead they choose to take them in the summer, at night at community college or online and transfer them to a Leland transcript. It is a known fact that it is easier to get an A or B from these sources. Leland should have realized that the reason for their drop in Newsweek ranking from 2007 to 2012 is the fact that they were not empowering and encouraging freshman and sophomores by giving them the benefit of the doubt on wobblers C-B grades. A “C” student is not pursuing AP class’s in the future and his destiny is set in stone. No AP classes means NO UC acceptance. This could have easily been achieved if test preparation was more efficient straight forward and exams were returned to students. Only Lazy teachers don’t write new test each year and return them after every exam. Good teachers know how to provide test preparation that a student can use to do well on a test. Teaching through exams is ridiculous at the high school level.
The primary basis of Newsweek’s High School Rankings is the availability and utilization of AP classes. How do I know this? My son had taken a Leland precalc class his sophomore year with a teacher that refused to return test and refused to work with his tutors. Despite his supervised and motivated efforts to bring his grade to a mere B, we had him drop out of the class and take the same class in a community college where he received an A. You would think that the college class would be more difficult but it was not—just better teachers. I remember a few years ago when my ASB President daughter Graduated from Leland, one of her friends from Pioneer who graduated Valedictorian, was rejected from UCD with a 4.0 gpa. It should be the mission of Leland to give the benefit of the doubt to the borderline student especially in the freshman and sophomore years—give any student with a 75% or better grade average a “B” instead of a “C”. And, it is not just me that feels this way about Leland High.
http://www.bestplaces.net/schools/california/san_jose/leland_high_school
http://www.yelp.com/biz/leland-high-school-san-jose
The Parade of Leland Scandals
Oct 7, 2005 – A high school teacher accused of keeping child pornography on a school-issued Brian K. Jessee, 44, a yearbook teacher at Leland High School, was arrested on a $25,000 misdemeanor warrant for possessing child pornography
Apr 3, 2012 – The Leland High School students disciplined last week in a test-stealing scandal
Apr 3, 2012 Joseph Reghitto, Leland High School Vice Principal Arrested for Alleged Unlawful Sex with a minor in September 2011
2012 school year – Leland Cheerleading team is told to suppress scandal involving girls sneaking away from a hotel and getting drunk with their boyfriends. As a consequence, several girls are secretly kicked of cheerleading team and on boy is kicked out of ASB with no reasons given.
2012 School Year—ASB president caught takeing pictures of a test and not given a cheating file to avoid public scandal over ASB faculty leadership.
The Newsweek Rankings.
-Leland High School in 2003 Ranked 389 Index-1458
- Leland High School in 2004 unranked
-Leland high school in 2005 Ranked 352 Index-1832
-Leland High School in 2006 Ranked 273 Index-2258
-Leland High School in 2007 Ranked 408 Index- 2083
-In 2009 Leland was unranked
In 2010 Leland was unranked
In 2011 Leland was unranked
In 2012 Leland was ranked 314
During the 2009-2010 School year on which the 2012 ranking is based, Leland was 42% Asian with 58% of the student population being ethnic. According to the ranking, 57% of the student population took part in AP tests with an 89% pass rate. There are only 8% economically disadvantaged students. Since this is a major part of the Newsweek ranking, its easy to understand how the administration is taking credit for high academic standards, but the reality of this is that the parents of the Asian 42% are responsible for this statistic. Unfortunately, for future Leland students, this Newsweek ranking won’t help the borderline 50% of students who need skilled teachers to have a shot at great college. I can only reflect my personal experience with my children who now have both graduated from Leland. My Daughter who attends UC Berkley and my son who will be attending University of Oregon both started out at Leland at the top 10% of Bret Harte’s graduating class. In hindsight, I can say that my kids have definitely given back to the school more than I did in my 4 years at Leland. Both kids, elected ASB officers every year, put everything they had into their academics, extracurricular and community spirit. You would think that with 8 years of ASB , Captain positions is more than one Varsity Sports, Victories at Speech and debate tournaments and good to great GPA’s that Leland would have recognize their contributions. Not the case with either child. The faculty but for a few exceptions has done just about everything they can to discourage. stifle and ignore their progress and achievements. Specifically, outrageous class scheduling, unreturned email communications, and total apathy when it came to the performance of a C or B student. Despite that, the efforts we as parents made outside of Leland are responsible for their successes. Besides the recent scandals that made the newspapers, I can attest to teachers who were buying Marijuana from students and actually teaching while high over the last 8 years.
And finally, how about that graduation ceremony at the Rose Garden? Besides a bunch of strange adults giving keynotes in the absence of the principle and other administrators that spent the last 4 years with our kids, there were numerous mistakes and errors on the program that left several Validictorians off of the program and absolutely no acknowledgement of the ASB officers. What a joke.
Goodbye and good riddance to Leland High School. I know many parents who quietly pulled their kids out of Leland in the middle of their high school education and put them in private schools. With the news that the upper administration has been purged with the conviction of the rapist vice principle, maybe Leland will finally take this chance to re-establish the old ways that made it great. I doubt it though, there is no one left with the vision.
Thank you for documenting what is surely the decline of a formerly outstanding high school. This provides a lesson (*to those who are listening*) of why schools fail.
Have a wonderful christmas with your family!!
Peggy
I think your sources may be biased.
First of all, Reghitto was accused of having unlawful sex with a minor, but there are other stories. Some say he was falsely accused by the victim, who disliked Reghitto.
I can say that there is truth in the cheating scandal and the ASB president scandal, and I can’t say that I’m not mad at the school for not trying to do so, but complaining on this website won’t do anything.
Not all the staff who care about the students have left; the ones that you mention are the ones that no one really know. They’re the ones that people start rumors about.
Another point, the Asian 42% of the school cannot account for ALL of the AP tests. There are others out there who work harder and achieve better scores. The Asians have to work hard because they are discriminated against, even though it may not seem that way. Statistics show that colleges are more willing to accept Hispanic and Caucasian students, but that doesn’t mean that those students are the ones who will work hard in college. It’s very different. The Asian students are the ones who actually want to improve their lives, yet they are the ones who are academically discouraged to go to college. An Asian student has to score about 150 points higher on the SAT to be considered for the same college a Caucasian student can get into for an SAT score 150 points lower.
Also, if your child receives a C or a B, it’s not the teacher’s fault. The teachers can and do pass back tests. It’s the student’s fault. They should try harder, and if they can’t improve, then why did they take the class?
I see no reason for you to mention a Pioneer student.
If Leland teachers changed their grading system, more students would have As, true, but that’s not the point of the grading system.
My daughter, who is currently attending Leland, knows no one who has transferred out of the school due to the problems you have mentioned.
Please reconsider your rant, and please make sure that the next time you post something like this that it is backed up with sufficient evidence and a mind that understands both sides of the problem.
Mrs Moon,
I admit to being biased, and if you are offended by what I see as the truth, I apologize and hope the best for your Leland grad. This rant is a year old and it was only intended to reflect my opinion of Leland based on 40 years of association with the school. My view of Leland comes from my experience graduating two kids from Leland and also from attending Leland myself. My mother worked for the unified school district for over 10 years and I see many kids in my practice from Leland. In addition, the evidence I have, though confidential, comes from faculty, retired faculty, past Booster club, Parents club, and Bridge presidents which I am still very much in touch with. It seems you think I am discriminating against Asians. I am Asian! In fact I was one of only ten Asians in my graduating class in 75. My daughter is graduating from CAL in two weeks and attending Columbia next year–Believe me when I tell you I understand the Asian effect on admissions to colleges and graduate schools. I am also amazed that after 4 years at Leland, you are satisfied with the grading system and test return policy. Also, I graduated 2 kids 3 years apart from Leland and I have had at least one child take a class from every honors teacher and department head at Leland. Mr Reghitto was the ASB advisor in 2011 and has been to my house. I am not basing my statements on rumor and hearsay. This blog post is old news anyways, if things are better at Leland than what I am describing, then great because they got better because people like me publically complained and that is the purpose of posting. When my last child graduated from Leland, there were teachers at Leland that had been there over 20 years–they are all gone now and the administrations is brand new. Please tell me if things are great again at Leland. All I know today is that a senior with a 3.8 GPA and a 1900 SAT score from Leland got rejected by every UC this year.
Yes, it is the students fault sometimes. But what if that student is having problems and wants to improve, and what if the parents are behind their child’s efforts (like we were) and hired tutors and worked with our kids to improve? I know that the Math Department returns test for review only in class, and that these test are not available to tutors outside of class trying to help B and C students improve. If they are currently returning test to tutors to help these students outside of class, its because many parents as well as myself have been lobbying them for this change for years. Why do our kids take those classes you ask? Certain classes are taken because they are prerequisites for college admission and that is why they MUST take the class. The reason they do not return test to students to take home is that they use the same test every year. Your child must have straight A’s and B’s. Or maybe you have never wanted to see a test that your child had done poorly on even though they felt they were prepared.
A C grade in any subject at Leland is virtually a guarantee that your child will not make it into a University of California University. The Average GPA of a UC accepted student is a 3.9. What do you think the point of the grading system is in high school? Do you think only the top 90 percent of students should have a shot at being accepted to a UC?
I personally know three families who made that decision in the last two years. Just because your daughter does not know them does not mean it didn’t happen.
Finally, out of curiosity, I googled Mr Rehgitto to see if their was a conviction on his charges. Couldn’t find anything. I do have some empathy when it comes to his situation and poor judgment and I do base my opinion of the debacle on what I have heard from the parents of the victim. I thought he was a good man and a caring administrator before the incident and I know that some high school girls can become dangerously misguided and he may have been entrapped. The year I graduated from Leland (1975), the football coach divorced his wife and married a graduating senior girl in my class and they are still married today–no arrests. Times change but you have to admit that that incident ruined the 2012 Graduation Ceremony and disrupted the entire administration at Leland.