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Schools

The High School Principals of Gilroy

Gilroy High Principal Marco Sanchez and Christopher High Principal John Perales tell us the one thing they'd most like to change about both schools.

Marco Sanchez, principal of Gilroy High School since 2009, knows first-hand the challenges of growing up in a tough neighborhood. His father, a fisherman and a baker, didn’t complete high school. His mother, who died when Sanchez was in the eighth grade, didn’t finish high school either, but she earned her general-equivalency diploma when she was 29. Sanchez went on first to compete as a Greco-Roman wrestler in the 1996 Olympics and then to become a Fulbright Scholar and earn his master’s degree in education and a doctorate in organizational leadership.

John Perales, principal of South Valley Middle School before he became the first principal of Christopher High School in 2009, met his wife, Leighan, at Gilroy High, his alma mater. Born and raised in Gilroy and educated in public schools here, Perales attended San Jose State, where he earned a master’s degree in school administration and did research work on the implementation of writing in schools. Perales began his career as a social studies teacher and was the principal of Mount Madonna Continuation High School, where he won accolades for earning the very-tough-to-achieve accreditation from the Western Association Schools and Colleges.

Patch talked to both principals about their backgrounds, their goals for Gilroy education, and how they feel about a little friendly competition.

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Gilroy Patch: Both of you attended public schools, and both of you clearly feel empathy for kids with fewer resources. Does that affect the decisions you make as principal?

Marco Sanchez: My own high school experience might make me more sensitive to the needs of students and families across the board, but I’m always careful not to over-empathize. I don’t want to let any of my students off the hook and not hold them to the highest standards. Both John and I obtained some success through hard work. We hope for the same success for our students.

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John Perales: I try to meet with all my students at least once a year; by that I mean I go into the classroom and tell them that my office is always open to them. I’ll say to students, “No one is more important than you, but I don’t care about excuses.” Yes, some of us have more obstacles in our path, but it’s what you make of what you’ve got. I might empathize, but I’m more focused on what’s next. Let’s overcome the obstacle, not make excuses, but decide how to move forward.

Patch: Sports were important for each of you. Marco, you were an Olympic athlete in Greco-Roman wrestling, and John, you played and coached football. Why do you think this makes a difference?

Sanchez: The challenges in athletics are similar to the challenges faced in academics. The competitiveness transfers over—the wish to excel and to be the very best accounts for a lot of the successes we see in our students. As athletes, we can identify with the scoreboard—although now the scoreboard is made up of test scores.

Perales: I couldn’t have said it better. I see competition in every aspect of my life. I’m married to someone who is the same way. It’s crazy! Sometimes we’ll race to the restroom and try to trip each other up on the way there. I jog and I’m always competing with myself, trying to take one more second off my own best time. But that competitive spirit fuels the desire to achieve.

Sanchez: I think athletes are high achievers by nature. As a principal, I still want to have the most points at the end of the game.

Patch: Marco, you were the first person in your immediate family to graduate from high school. Who inspired you to go on and get advanced degrees?

Sanchez: My coaches. They saw something in me that nobody else saw, and they nurtured it. I was planning to be a Marine. Instead, thanks to support and encouragement from my high school teachers and coaches, I was a Fulbright Scholar. I never thought anyone would invest money in me for doing something I loved.

Also, I watched my mother struggle to get her GED when she was 29 years old. I was 9 or 10 years old, and I saw how hard she worked and how much it meant to her to earn her GED. That made a big impression on me.

Perales: My parents instilled a good work ethic. I have an amazing family with parents who would die for me, but even so, several of my coaches and teachers made a difference in my life. I tell our teachers this all the time: If teachers can make a difference for someone like me, a student who had a completely supportive family, imagine what a difference a teacher can make for a kid who struggles with bigger issues.

Sanchez: Athletics also put me in with a group of students who wanted to achieve. You are a product of the people you surround yourself with. Too often we see bright, capable student who don’t achieve, because they fall in with kids who aren’t interested in school or aren’t motivated to do well. If you’re competitive, and you can apply that competitiveness to school, that’s a good way to succeed.

Patch: Speaking of competition, there’s some friendly rivalry between Gilroy High and Christopher High. I saw both of you working that rivalry in November with the turkey drive: You issued a challenge to see which school could be the first to donate 100 turkeys to the

Sanchez: That was John’s idea, and it was a good one.

Patch: As a Gilroy High parent, it was interesting to see the e-mails circulating. They said, “Christopher High has almost reached the 100-turkey goal. We can’t let Christopher win the turkey challenge!” I know it propelled a few parents at Gilroy High into donating some birds.

Sanchez: I think John already had 99 turkeys sitting in his office when he threw out that challenge.

Perales (laughing): No, I didn’t!

Sanchez: OK, 89 birds.

Perales: You know we lost the bell in the game between the schools. My friends don’t let me forget that. I’ll get messages on my phone every few weeks saying, “I’m looking for the bell. Any idea where the bell could be?”

Patch: It’s good that you keep a sense of humor.

Perales: That’s important in this job.

Patch: Let's talk about the discrepancy between the two high schools. There’s Christopher High, which is architecturally beautiful, and Gilroy High, which is more—venerable. How do you as principals react if parents comment on the divide between the two schools?

Perales: Because I was the principal at South Valley before I came to Christopher, I understand this feeling that parents have when their kids attend a school that isn’t the new, beautiful campus. As much as I wanted to be the principal at Christopher, I did have some reservations about being at the new school, when my entire life I’ve seen myself as affiliated with Gilroy High.

This was such a good opportunity, I couldn’t pass it up. How often does a new high school open in your home town? But there was one moment where it hit me that I wasn’t at Gilroy High anymore. The Christopher cheerleaders were practicing just before the school opened, and they were yelling, “Go Big Black!” I thought, “What the heck?” It was like expecting a shower to be hot and it’s cold.

Patch: Because you’ve rooted for Big Blue all your life.

Perales: Yes!

Patch: It must be tough sometimes to not root for your alma mater, Gilroy High.

Perales: Well, I do root for Gilroy High. Nine games out of 10, they have my full support.

But back to the architecture of the school: I have to say that my staff, and not the building, make Christopher High as good as it is. They could teach in a warehouse. Give me the same staff and a big-enough warehouse, and we would end up with the same results.

On the other hand, I do believe that bad architecture costs as much as good architecture. I think you can make changes that students notice even if you can’t build a beautiful new school. At Christopher, I like that the entrance to every room has a small garlic bulb design set into the plaster above the doorway. And there are cougar prints beside the names of every building. These are small details that don’t cost a lot but make a difference.

Patch: John, you spoke last week about the importance of architecture at the California’s Coalition for Adequate School Housing event in Sacramento.

Perales: Right. Having a beautiful school is a big advantage. Having said that, I think the people who teach and run the school are far more important than how a school looks. The people at Christopher are the most important factor in how our students do.

Sanchez: Gilroy High’s buildings need some love, and we’ll get there. For the community as a whole, getting a second high school up and running was job one. We didn’t have room for all the students in one high school, and I’m glad the community supported making the second high school as good as it is. We are all working to get that finished, and then Gilroy High will get the attention it needs. In the meantime, we still focus on the important things: a more academic culture in our school, a higher percentage of our students going to college after high school, and alternatives to college, such as occupational classes for our high school graduates.

Patch: If you could change just one thing about your school, what would you change?

Sanchez: Increased parent involvement outside of athletics. It sometimes feels as if parents spend all their time and energy on sports and events such as our music programs. I’m very grateful for those parents who work on the school site council, ELAC [English Learner Advisory Council] and the parent club—they are a hard-working, dedicated group of parents. I just wish there were more parents helping in those areas.

Perales: Parental involvement is key. Parent involvement and school funding would be the two things I’d ramp up. I have younger children at home, and it’s interesting to see the huge turnout for something like a second-grade brownie cook-off. In middle school, the parent activity drops off, and in high school it drops off even more. It’s ironic, because I think high school is where parents most need to be involved. Teens face big issues today: sexuality, drug use, peer pressure. The high school years are when your child most needs you.

Patch: You both have young children. Marco, your son is 8, and John, your children are 4, 7, and 10. How does it affect your kids to have a father who is a principal?

Perales: I sometimes worry that I do a poor job of being a father, because I’m a principal. I’m gone a lot. I can outwork anybody, and I want my children to see an example of how hard work pays off, but I do try to bring my kids to school when I’m at Christopher outside the school day. My 4-year-old was with me when I was working recently, and she came into my office and said, “Can you fire someone?” I said, “Sort of. Why?” She wanted me to fire a teacher who had kicked her out of the teacher’s lounge. I explained that that was the teacher’s lounge, and she couldn’t be in there by herself, but obviously she has some idea about my role at the school. Maybe not an accurate idea. My parting words to each of my children every morning are, “Nobody works harder than you in that classroom.”

Sanchez: I think people have unrealistic expectations of high school principals. I want to be there for every school event, and I make Gilroy High a priority in my life, but I also want to be a good father and a good husband. I try to include my family at school events. My wife and son come to most of our sporting events with me. Vacations are important for us; we try to make the most of our down time. It’s a balancing act. You work hard and try to be the best that you can be.

Patch: What’s your goal for your school in the next three to five years?

Sanchez: I’d like to improve our academic culture. Improve student performance and student achievement. I’d like to improve the rate at which we send our graduates to colleges and universities, and I’d also like to offer more post-secondary opportunities such as vocational education.

Perales: I’d vote for the same things. I’d love for the high schools to focus on two or three goals every year and do everything possible to achieve those specific goals within the year. In our line of work, it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae. If our goal for the year was to increase the college-going rate, I’d like to make it meaningful. This isn’t just a number increase. If we raise our college-going rate by one student, that is one person who will have a better life. Every student matters.

Author note: Every parent matters, too. Want to join in the challenge to see which high school can have the most parents attend the next parent club meeting? All you have to do is show up to support your child's school. Everyone is welcome; meetings usually last less than an hour; and Patch will report the number of people who attend each school's meeting.

Gilroy High School:  Tuesday, March 8, 7 p.m.

Gilroy High School Library

Christopher High School:  Thursday, March 10, 6:30 p.m. 

Christopher High School Library

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