Where do the 9th grade students belong?

By Susan Martimo Choi

History of the decision to move ninth grades to the high school and build a second high school.

However, in 1978, when the high school was overcrowded and on double sessions, and Murphy was finally completed, it opened with grades 7-9 and ninth grade students were added to Britton as a temporary solution. I don't feel that decision was made because of the best interests of the students or to provide them with the best educational program, but because of the capacity of the existing high school facility (which is the same high school facility we have today - twenty years later!)

We've lived with grades 7-9 in the middle schools (a supposedly temporary solution) for 20 years now. In 1990, a Grade Configuration Study Committee again recommended that the district have grades 6-8 in the middle schools and grade 9-12 at the high school. But 1990-91 was the start of years of severe budget cuts for our district and the Committee's recommendations were shelved.

Two years later, in 1992, the Middle School Study Committee reaffirmed, "the Morgan Hill Unified School District should have a four-year high school." However, at that time there were other pressing facilities needs, Measure B was just taking effect to provide a new elementary school and very much needed renovation of our other schools, and the economy was still in trouble. The District and the Board did not implement this recommendation either.

By 1997, most members of the Board were new, there was new administration in the district and at the high school, and the economy was surging upward. The Board set as its number one goal:

"By January 1998, determine the grade level configuration of the district, including the 4-year high school status, develop the preliminary implementation plan including accompanying facility and funding needs."

The Board has met this goal. We have decided to have schools with grades K-6, 7-8, and 9-12, we have decided to have two high schools, and we have decided to ask voters to pass a bond to pay for the facility needs.

As a district, and as a community, we put off this decision too many years because it's a difficult one to implement. It will cause change and it will take a lot of money to do it, but our students deserve to have a full high school opportunity and we owe it, not only to them, but to ourselves, to have the best high school we can.