Since 2017, Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) has intended to build a new school for New Valley High School, and in 2024, the board approved a plan to move the school to a renovated Wilson Educational Options Campus. But despite years of very public discussion and planning, opponents of the Wilson plan continue to attack the plan.
Part 1 reviews the history of the plan to move New Valley High School to the Wilson Educational Options Campus.
The principal objection to moving New Valley to the Wilson Educational Options Campus isn’t about logistics or whether the campus can provide what the school needs. Instead, the argument is one about neighborhood ambiance and the availability of school fields for non-SCUSD groups.
Wilson is already home to district Adult Education, Wilson Pre-School, Wilson High School self-study program, Family-Child Education, Independence Network and Student Services, including the SCUSD Enrollment Center and the Family Resource Center. These programs bring people to the campus throughout the day and evening. The proposed plan will use about one-third of the remaining open space on the campus.
Earlier this year, a group calling itself “Save Our Green Space – Stop New Valley” started a petition. They have been vocal at the townhalls, and, at the most recent meeting about New Valley in November. Some even disrupted the meeting by interrupting speakers and catcalling.
Opposition comes from neighbors and non-SCUSD groups complaining that New Valley would bring more traffic to Benton Street, harm the environment and interfere with Little Leagues and cricket clubs that use the fields. All of which amounts to “potentially jeopardizing our community’s well-being and serenity,” says the group’s website.
“The presence of a high school so close to a residential area brings forth immense challenges … Benton Street, already bustling with transit, will likely become a hub of morning and afternoon vehicular activity,” with the result that “incessant noise from school activities will pose a significant disruption to our daily lives.”
Originally a middle school, Wilson School has been on that site since 1955, adding a new administration building in 1982.
Commenters on the site are more pointed. “Raphael” writes: “We have enough class room [sic] there should be a [sic] open field and not boxes.” Another commenter, “Janelle,” summarizes their opposition as, “This is ridiculous given the amount that we pay in taxes just to live in our beautiful city.”
One commenter, “Caroline, Oakland,” likely damaged opponents’ cause more than helped it with her comment: “There are already other high schools in Santa Clara. We don’t need to invest $125 million in an alternative school. That money would be better spent on kids that want to be in school and have not been expelled from the existing options!”
The New Valley budget is $62 million, none of its students have been expelled from other schools, and at 60, it is an SCUSD program of long standing.
It’s About Equity
It is likely that no other students in SCUSD are sitting in classrooms that haven’t been renovated or significantly improved in half a century.
“It’s not sexy to spend money on the disenfranchised,” said then-Board President Vickie Fairchild at the Oct. 24. 2024 school board meeting. “We have some of our most needy students in the horrible facilities, and we have parents that scream about portables [on school campuses] all the time. The whole [New Valley] campus is portables.”
While building a new high school campus was “fiscally irresponsible,” said SCUSD Trustee Michele Ryan at the same meeting. “It doesn’t give a solution to our students who are continuing to be in a campus that they shouldn’t have been in for years.
“I challenge anyone to go to the New Valley campus and think that that’s an acceptable solution for our students, our students who are at greatest need,” Ryan continued. “I would like this done next year and have them moved into a facility that supports them. What are we telling students to have them in that campus year after year after year and not serve them?”
Recent New Valley graduate Jessica Buckley spoke on New Valley’s students’ “dire need” for a better campus.
“I struggled with my academics, as well as many others in 2020, so much so that I was needing to recover more than an entire year’s worth of credits,” she said. “At that point, I had no intention of completing high school. All that changed when I entered New Valley’s program.”
Buckley went on to detail the poor state of the campus: damaged ceilings, insufficient bathrooms, no cafeteria, limited space for school activities.
She concluded, “I ask you to consider the urgent needs of this district’s most vulnerable students while making this decision.”
Speakers at the 2024 meeting representing other programs on the Wilson site, while voicing concerns about how the proposal would work and how it might affect other programs, supported New Valley’s need for proper facilities.
“My whole goal in attending today was to advocate for the [community] garden [at Wilson],” said Julie Garrett, “and I still hold that goal, but I am struck by the complexities of the problem that you’re trying to solve. I think there’s a lot of synergy that could be had here … Texting with other gardeners … [we said] we really want to get involved in … outreach to these incredible kids.”
Carolyn Schuk can be reached at carolyn@santaclaraweekly.com.
Related Posts:
Santa Clara Unified: New Valley High School Finds New Home
New Valley and Wilson Seniors Win Kiwanis Club Turnaround Scholarships
Thomas Wu, also wrote the following piece in the Wilcox Scribe: https://scribewilcox.com/5382/uncategorized/new-valley-high-school-relocation-an-scusd-equity-issue/.
