Parent group forms to protest, prevent firing of Principal Gary Jensen
GARY JENSEN. File photo
By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor
Some parents are coming to the defense of Benicia High School’s principal following reports that he will be issued a pink slip by the Benicia Unified School District Governing board.
The parents have formed a Facebook group called “Don’t Fire Gary Jensen, BHS Principal!” and are seeking to drum up community support for the administrator.
As Jill Ray, founder of the online group, wrote, “I am starting a grassroots effort to stop this from happening!”
Ray, a parent of three former and three current Benicia High students, said the reasons for the board’s planned termination of Jensen are still murky.
“We don’t know the reason why, the district won’t discuss personnel matters,” she said. “Apparently last May when the new HR director came on, he said that Gary should look for another job. So they’re planning on pink-slipping him at the March 1st board meeting.”
Ray said Jensen has the support of the parent community, and that community will not hesitate to back him.
She said she hopes those supporters will come in large numbers to the school board’s regular meeting Feb. 16.
“We’re rallying support in the community for everybody to get out to the meeting and oppose (the firing),” she said.
Jensen, who declined comment for this story, was hired in 2009 to replace former Principal Patrick Holland. He began work that fall.
While Ray is unsure of any political reasons why the district would want to fire Jensen, she feels it would be detrimental to the stability of the school.
She said Benicia High is in the middle of the accreditation process with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and perceived instability could have damaging effects.
“In our WASC accreditation, one of the items that came back last time around was that we needed continuity in the administration of the high school. We are right in the middle of going through that accreditation again. This is the worst possible time you could replace a principal,” Ray said.
“They’re saying to keep your accreditation you need to maintain continuity, and yet we’re going to fire our principal in the midst of it?”
Dismay was felt among teachers, too, at the news that Jensen may get a pink slip.
“I am saddened to think that yet again the district will remove a principal from Benicia High School. This is a critical time in education and Mr. Jensen has been helping implement new programs and build up old ones that have been lost due to cuts,” said Susan Gibbs, teacher and former Benicia Teachers Association president.
“I believe Mr. Jensen is supportive of the CTE (Career Tech Education) program and will be an asset increasing the number of pathways for kids to enter to prepare them for the 21st century.”
Gibbs said in her 23 years at the high school, she has seen more than seven different principals. “Each time I must wait for them to learn our names and the basic layout of the school,” she said.
“We are in the midst of a WASC review for next year and we will begin implementing the new federal standards this year known as Common Core. There really is no sound reason in my estimation to make this change.”
Judith Tata, parent of a recent high school graduate and former head of the school district’s Wellness Advisory Committee, also urged a need for stability. “I think that the high school needs stability and not a revolving door policy, which they’ve been having,” she said.
Tata said Jensen was very effective in handling reports of bullying in the school.
“He was very prompt in taking care of it. He was very professional. The way he solved the problem by getting everybody involved, including the parents, I can tell you now a year later that it turned out very well.”
She said the students have found Jensen strict but fair — a “good disciplinarian. Nobody is perfect. But you know what, in an imperfect world I think he’s doing a pretty good job.”
Jill Ray said with a senior, junior and sophomore currently in the high school, she sees Jensen’s involvement on a regular basis.
“He’s at every sporting event. He’s at soccer, he’s at basketball, he’s at wrestling, he’s at baseball, he’s at football. He goes to band performances — anywhere you go, you drive by that high school at all hours of the day and night and his car is there.”
Nor has she heard any complaints about the principal from students, parents or teachers.
“He’s got an open door policy. He’s responsive when we have concerns. I can’t even imagine what has happened to make them decide to do this.”
The most important thing, she said, is that the students like and respect Jensen.
“The kids love him. That’s one of the first things that he did, was to get together with leadership and talk to them about what they wanted to see in their schools, and he’s been implementing that,” Ray said.
“Let’s be honest. There are problems at every school, and he’s been addressing them. This population, they’re experimenting, they’re trying different things. He’s making them accountable to the decisions that they’re making.
“They need to maintain Gary Jensen as principal.”
District Board of Trustees President Rosie Switzer declined comment, saying the matter was a personnel issue, and calls to Superintendent of Benicia Schools Janice Adams were not returned by press time.
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Good article. Unless there is something very damaging that we don’t know about, I think that he should be given more than a year to prove himself.
These are the same clowns that threatened to get Ron Wheat kicked out before the community stepped up. The Board clearly needs to be replaced.
It is my understanding that Mr. Jensen is being offered a PE position at BMS – so that tells me that there is nothing illegal involved. Just for clarification – this has not gone to the School Board as of yet – this is coming out of the District Office. It is scheduled to go to the School Board March 1st for their vote.
I agree with this comment. We need to give Gary more time to clean the school up and that includes it’s new found growing reputation for Major drug issues.
Gary was very instrumental helping my son last semister. Who on the school board thinks Gary should go?
In the 4 years my son was a student at Benicia High, he had 3 principals; Gary Jensen was the last one. I’ve been on the School Site Council for the last 5-1/2 years and am currently helping with the WASC accreditation. As part of the last WASC accreditation, I believe one of the recommendations was that the school needed more consistent leadership. That was 3 principals ago.
There is no question that the school desperately needs more consistency. Every time there’s a new person in that position it takes at least the first year to get to know the students, parents, issues, culture and community. There were some serious bullying and discipline issues that Gary has worked very hard to minimize or eliminate by adding lunch time activities to build teamwork among the students. With the help of committed teachers, he re-introduced the Link Crew, a group of student leaders who “buddy” with incoming freshman to help ease them into life as a high schooler. The payoff was that for the first 3 weeks of the new school year, there were no fights or altercations. That may not sound like a great accomplishment, but given the changing student body of 1,700 students, I think it’s pretty impressive.
There is now a pretty strict yet straight forward discipline policy that all the students are aware of. When school dances got completely out of hand last year with inappropriate dancing and attire, strict rules were put in place in time for the Jr/Sr Prom so that all the students could enjoy themselves. The cell phone policy that Gary implemented amidst much grumbling last year was long overdue. Cell phones are incredibly disruptive in the classroom; kids use their phones to cheat and if they are texting their friends, they are not paying attention to the teacher. Despite the expected uproar, the policy is still in place and kids coming from the middle school where cell phones are not allowed have a consistent policy to follow. And it’s no secret that there has been a very bad drug problem at the high school for years, yet it was never discussed or publicized. It appears that there have been more interventions this year than I can ever remember in the past.
Gary is at every extra-curricular event that he can possibly make. He has always had an open door policy to discuss any issues or concerns and he genuinely cares about the academic and social well-being of all the students.
The U2 song “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” comes to mind because I don’t think the District knows. We’ve had PhDs, we’ve had Vice-Principals promoted from within, we’ve had other people from outside the district. None have worked out for one reason or another.
With major curriculum changes and the WASC re-accreditation currently in progress, I sincerely hope the Board decides that the drastic step of removing yet another principal from Benicia High is just not appropriate or warranted at this time and rejects the pink slip to remove Gary Jensen.
Karen,
Thank you for your service. I am unfamiliar with the current situation at BHS but it is important that folks understand that personnel decisions should remain private – between the Superintendent and the Board as well as the individual involved. I can only add that the last thing I would have ever wanted to be at any level , High School, Middle School or Elementary School, would have been a school administrator. Caught between the interests and strong feelings of students, parents, teachers and other administrators let us just say that there isn’t much margin for error. The one thing I would advise decision makers to do is not to be swayed by anecdotal data alone (unless that data is overwhelming) and that input from all stakeholders is considered. Let the board decide as they are the ones we have elected and trusted to do the right thing. Additionally, we need to recognize that we are still a very attractive district, which is why parents would even consider getting their children enrolled here.
Thank you Reg, your points are very valid. It’s always a bit more difficult to govern or administer in a small town because everyone knows everyone else. Perhaps there is a problem with the hiring process and normally I wouldn’t meddle in a management decision, but the revolving door of leaders at BHS is incredibly disruptive on every level. Just when teachers, students and parents get used to someone’s policies and styles, they are gone. Because Mr. Jensen was offered a teaching position elsewhere in the district it was assumed that his removal was not for egregious misconduct. If there are administrative deficiencies, try to correct them before taking drastic measures yet again. When you keep changing leaders, people have a tendency to disconnect and tune-out figuring the person isn’t going to be around
Oops I shouldn’t have tried to respond on my phone and hit the wrong button. This should be at the end of my other post.
Long anyway. You could have a rockstar but if no one listens because they assume their tenure will be shortlived, then everyoneyou loses. I thinkhave the parents, teachers and studentsI felt this wasam important enough tosleep give theme Board information and perspectiveI they neverare would have had otherwise. I respect our superintendent and the board a great deal but feel all sides should have a voice if for no other reason than having a complete picture before making a decision that affects so many people.
The school will not improve until it is cleared of all these ‘phantom Benicia kids’ from Vallejo who go to school there because an “Auntie” lives in Benicia. It’s an outrage and robs OUR kids of a better education.
As the parent of elementary school kids I have had no experience with the high school or this Principal. If the turnover at this position is as high as reported, there must be another problem. Is the hiring process flawed, ate the people executing the hiring process incompetent, is Benicia High that bad that it’s driving good people away? What is the root cause of these multiple failures in hiring? If the current Principal is let go, what will be done differently when hiring his replacement?
Citizen is right on about more stringent screening out of non-Benicia residents. What passes for a review of residency is laughable at the elementary schools. How can we build a strong sense of community with so many transients infiltrating our ranks? If you don’t live here then you should not be allowed to attend school here. Period. No exceptions!
Tom and Citizen, I did a study during the parcel tax campaign last year about “phantom kids” from outside Benicia and it’s very hard for many long time Benicians to understand but there were only about 111 students from Vallejo on inter-district transfer agreements with a total of about 150 from various locations. I can’t remember the exact numbers but each student brings approximately $4800 in ADA money which translated to about $700,000 to the district. That’s a lot of money. Further, a large majority of the students are children of district employees or other Benicia employees. Benicia has changed quite a bit in the last 5 years and a number of students that people think are “phantom kids” actually live here. When a number of people in Vallejo and surrounding areas lost their homes and had to rent, they chose to rent in Benicia so that their kids could legitimately go to school here. In fact, one of the things that Gary Jensen did was to look very closely at students who did NOT live in Benicia and did not go through the appropriate mechanisms and had them removed at the beginning of the school year last year and this year. That is a very time consuming process but he did it.
Also, it’s easy to say “If you don’t live here then you should not be allowed to attend school here. Period. No exceptions.” But there is a law that requires that if Benicia (or any school district) has room in their schools, students from “underperforming districts” which Vallejo certainly is, must be allowed to attend so long as they notify the accepting school district by a certain date and go through specific channels. The registration process at BHS has been changed and tightened up considerably in the last few years so there really aren’t as many transients infiltrating our ranks as you might think.
I don’t know about the hiring process, but why has St. Pat’s had 2 principals in 19 years while Benicia High has had 7 in 23 years?
Karen –
Thanks for sharing facts and data. In my opinion we shouldn’t allow non-Benicia residents to attend Benicia Schools, period! I don’t care if they are the children of Benicia School district employees or other Benicia employees. If they live in another town, their kids should attend school in that town. I’m aware of people who became “yard-duty” employees so that their kids would qualify for Benicia schools. One hour per day and their kids get to go to Benicia schools. Ridiculous! Kick them out!
150 inter-district transfers? There should be zero. Let’s get the law changed to make that legal.
I’m aware of many people who lived in other towns but attended Benicia schools. All they needed to do was put a Benicia relatives phone bill in their name and they were accepted into Benicia schools. Again I say ridiculous! If your license doesn’t have a Benicia address no registration. If you can’t present mortgage or rental documents that agree with your drivers license then no registration.
I also don’t care about 150 out of district kids bringing in $700,000. I say keep the kids out of Benicia and let the state keep the money. If that means that we have a smaller distrct with small classes, fewer classes, fewer schools, fewer teachers and fewer administrators, great!
Regarding the law that requires us to accept out of town students, it is high time to change that law! Until the law is overturned we need to reduce Benicia’s capacity so that we can turn away out of town students legally!
Looks like a growing consensus that eliminating creep from “VTown” next door is a high priority. I too have seen the carpools and single parent drivers dropping off at the State Park area then jumping back on 780 to go back to Vallejo. Bravo to this fellow for taking that on.
I think people who bought homes and choose to live in Benicia did so for many reasons. One of those reasons could be the school system. My realtor did not disclose the school system included other districts. Live here go to school here that seems simple. Did I miss an opportunity to vote on this issue?
We are talking about 150 kids out of 5000. That is a very low percentage relative to all school districts.
The law Karen is referring to is a state law, not a local one. It applies to every school distict in the state.Tom, if you want to take that on over such low transfer rates, so be it, but just be aware that this issue has been studied to death by the district already, changes have been made to tighten up the entry process already, and laws don’t change based on antidoctal evidence of some guy who watches a kid get dropped of at the state park. (Carl, I appreciate a lot of your blog comments, but I think you are way off here. It is just as likely to be a Southampton Mom trying to beat the traffic [or was there some distinguishing feature that lead you to believe the child did not belong here? If so, why don’t you share it with the group?])
Recognizing the emotional nature of this issue the District has looked at it over and over again. There have been reports at televised meetings that the actual measured data shows that transfer students are among the highest perfoming students in the district, in part because they are required to maintain a certain level of performance to stay.
One last thing – the notion that removing these kids will somehow lead to smaller class sizes is completely backwards. The elimination of $700,000.00 from an already strained budget is far more likely to lead to INCREASED class size, which in turn could really lead to a decrease in property values, because our current very good school district is a factor in people’s decision to move here, just as Larry indicated.
engaged citizen –
You refer to the 150 students who followed the established, legal process to get into Benicia schools. You have not commented on the people who fraudulently attend Benicia schools by falsifying addresses. It amazes me how easy it is to register for Benicia schools and how little review (if any) of the submitted documents is performed.
If bringing in 150 kids and $700,000 is a good thing, let’s go into the gang infested areas of a large neighboring city and transfer hundreds more into Benicia. We’ll be rich! And of course they will be the best performers because they really want to be here…
The drop offs I observe take place near the State Park entrance, I don’t know why any Southampton parents or other Benicia residents would just not drive up to the high school. But what I hear is that it’s about the money for the district that we should all tolerate students from other districts. That isn’t flying here.
The reason why you see so many cars drop off and pick up their kids at the State Park entrance is the horrendous traffic in front of BHS. Also, remember that Benicia residents in the western area of Southampton drive this way to/from BHS. So you can’t assume these cars are all from Vallejo. Also, a total of 111 students from Vallejo out of a total enrollment around 5,000 is a very small percentage.
Just an FYI regarding ‘those’ kids in our school. Much of what happens in our schools is done by children who are legally in our schools. They live here. The drug bust that just happened? Benicia kids. The drug dealer that was arrested? Benicia kid. The kids that have gotten in trouble over sexual impropriety? Benicia kids. It is easy to point your finger at ‘those’ kids. But why not step up and help us solve the problem? You want to help our schools? Support the closure of the BHS campus at lunchtime. Volunteer to mentor some of our at risk kids. We always need tutors to help our kids who don’t receive that sort of support at home. Pick a campus, any campus, within our district and offer to help raise ‘our’ kids. Don’t our children deserve a chance?
Well said, Jill.
Jill –
I have tutored Benicia students. I’ve also tutored in other Solano County School Districts. You encouraged people to support closing the High School campus at lunch. How will this benefit the kids? Why do we need it? I don’t need to be sold on having a closed campus. When I grew up nobody knew what a closed campus was. We would never fathom leaving the campus during school hours. Not the case today. So why should the campus be closed? And why does it take community support? If the administration is convinced we need a closed campus policy then set the policy. As the reporting on the BHS Principal issue has shown, the Board is willing to take a stand. They are willing to establish policy on cell phones for Junior High and High School Students. Why not set a closed campus policy for High School students if, in their judgment, it is merited? Why do they need our support? They certainly didn’t need our support for extended kindergarten classes. In fact we, the patents, fought it. Janice Adams implemented it despite the overwhelming objections of parents If a closed campus is the right thing, do it. You don’t need my blessing or approval. In fact, you’ve shown that the lack of my approval means nothing to you.
Tom,
I agree that the campus should be closed absent compelling reasons why it shouldn’t be. At the time I was on the board the rationale was that we did not have the facilities to handle the number of students during lunchtime. If other districts have implemented such a policy with success we should seriously consider doing the same. The most important question is that which deals with the safety of students – not only those who leave campus but those who remain.
Reg –
Why is there a concern for the safety of students who remain on campus during lunch?
Tom –
What I was referring to was the general proposition that once students are on campus there is some level of control. If you allow some to leave that level of control is lost. Perhaps I could have worded that better and I apologize if it wasn’t clear. This is something that has come up on a regular basis and just needs to be considered again as you raised the issue. Personally, I have no reason to believe the situation now is any different in that respect than it was years ago.
Reg –
Sorry I misunderstood your earlier post.
Tom, the closed campus issue came up about 6 years ago – I raised it after reviewing the California Healthy Kids Survey and seeing how many kids drink and smoke pot during the lunch hour at 9th St. Park, State Park, etc. I contacted about 20 high schools in a 30 mile radius and we were/are the only “open campus” in that area and probably beyond. The reasons for this were many, but most were lame. The best ones were “we’ve always been open or we don’t want to have a prison like atmosphere.” The only one with any merit was that the cafeteria at the time was only serving 90 lunches a day with 1650 kids on campus. So, a group of parents worked with the District to put a new payment system in place to speed up the process and last summer the entire cafeteria was remodeled with food courts, the food was upgraded and everything is actually pretty cool in there now. This was done with Valero Good Neighbor Steering Committee money with the intended purpose of keeping more kids on campus and cutting down on the “carbon footprint.” They are now serving more than 400 lunches a day which is comparable to Jesse Bethel and Vallejo High. Not all kids eat lunch or they bring their own so there’s never going to be need to feed all 1600 kids. We have a beautiful facility that can more than accommodate a closed campus. More campus supervisors would probably be needed during that time to monitor and all the talk from some about fights and conflicts is really just one more excuse not to do it.
Another reason for raising this issue 6 years ago was because of the car loads full of kids leaving campus, many with drivers who had just gotten their license and are not supposed to have passengers for one year!
Now, the reason this may have resurfaced is that in the last 2 weeks there have been 2 serious car accidents, one while racing back to school from lunch – both cars had 4 kids in them and everyone is very lucky there were no serious injuries. Last week 4 students were arrested and suspended for selling/possessing pot on Church St. The police department has more important things to do during noon and 1 p.m. than round up goofballs generally going off campus so that they can get into trouble. Kids race to In-and-Out in Pinole in the 38 minute period at about 90 miles an hour. So it’s a question of trying to get everyone on the same page and just doing it. I just hope we don’t wait unti one of those accidents turns tragic.
Karen –
You’ve made a good case for a closed campus.
I recognize that a change like that is not something that happens with the snap of a finger – but everytime we change principals, we reset the clock to the starting point while the new person gets up to speed trying to learn their way around the minefield that is BHS.
I’ll certainly remember to stay off the freeway between here and Pinole during lunchtime.
The Benicia rumor mill is in overdrive about an elementary Principal who has been forced to resign effective at the end of the school year. What is happening with Benicia Schools, the board and the Superintendant?