Tokay teacher Mike Murphy plans to file complaint with grand jury to save electives

Mike Murphy is an industrial arts teacher at Tokay High School. Murphy has filed a complaint with Lodi Unified School District because of what he views as an effort by district administrators to end shop classes. (Brian Feulner/News-Sentinel)

Tokay teacher Mike Murphy plans to file complaint with grand jury to save electives

By Jennifer Bonnett
News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 6:10 AM PDT

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A longtime Tokay High School shop teacher claims his expertise and woodshop are being pushed aside by school district officials who want students to be taking more academic classes rather than vocational ones.

Mike Murphy has filed a complaint with Lodi Unified School District and has plans to submit a complaint to the San Joaquin County grand jury. Murphy said the elimination of industrial arts on the high school campus has gained momentum in the last few months as students register for next fall's courses.

Both he and Tokay photography teacher Michael Cruz said students are being forced to take classes they don't need for graduation in order to raise test scores in core subjects. If more students take the federal Adequate Yearly Progress examination in math and science courses, the school's scores will rise, they reason.

"It's about the test scores," Murphy said. "If you want your kid to succeed and he's not in the top 10 percent, don't go to Tokay or even Lodi Unified. They've turned their backs on the average kid."

If Murphy's complaint is not resolved, his concerns would go before the state Department of Education.

Murphy's drafting class was eliminated for the 2008-09 school year, and in 2009-10, there will be only one home economics and one business class at Tokay, he said.

But Tokay Principal Erik Sandstrom said those decisions have yet to be made as school trustees haven't yet adopted the district's budget for next school year.

"Right now we aren't saying any elective is gone because we don't have our cutbacks from the board yet," Sandstrom said.

Woodshop or gangs

Murphy, however, does not see it as a budget issue.

"It wasn't budget a year ago, it wasn't budget two years ago," Murphy said, pointing to threats last year that his program was going to be eliminated.

Students picketed on campus to save the classes. Some even held signs with phrases like, "Wood shop is my anti-drug."

Murphy said if it wasn't for the industrial arts courses, some kids wouldn't attend school.

In fact, he had two students who were going to return next school year but when they were told they have to take college preparation courses, they dropped out, he said.

"I want my kids back," he said. "They're still in the community. Where are they? In gangs."

At Tokay, Murphy has fought for years to keep program enrollment up and has even recruited students to take his classes, which include wood shop, construction technology and building.

Sandstrom continues to encourage program directors to recruit students so classes can stay open. "We do this everywhere, even when we are in cutbacks. We don't say, 'You have to take this elective over this one.' Absolutely not."

It all may harken back to better preparing students for their future. Superintendent Cathy Nichols-Washer said the district wants to offer a curriculum that allows students to take any post-graduation path.

"We never want to assume a student is not going to college, because that is their decision. It's an effort that the district is making," she added of the year's long change. "If they're not prepared to be in college, that door could be closed. We want to make sure that when they're done at Lodi Unified, they have every avenue open to them."

'Ramping up rigor'

At Tokay, Sandstrom said he and Vice Principal Martha Dent have adopted a standard to get all students to meet University of California admission requirements — even if they're not going to college.

"They may be headed on the vocational path, but why not prepare them for college?" Sandstrom said. "At least let them have the options."

Paul Guthrie, who teaches industrial arts at Lodi High, talks of the success of one of his students who chose to take drafting and woodshop in high school because they were the type of classes the school he wanted to get into — University of California, Berkeley — wanted to see on his transcript.

Many of his other students during his 23 years in the district have gone on to trade school and work as landscape architects and building engineers locally.

"There were all able to take a class like drafting and see what kind of career they could get," Guthrie said.

Further, Murphy said, students use problem solving skills daily in industrial arts classes as they measure wood or determine how to make things work.

But Sandstrom said the test score argument doesn't hold water, because if those students as a whole do bad on the standardized test, scores will go down. Further, he refutes allegations that administrators are encouraging students to take more academic courses.

"It's not a pull away from electives or a push to academics. It's ramping up those (post-high school) skills," he said of the importance of writing, communication and math skills. "That should be in every classroom."

He said the school is required to offer four years of English, but it does not have to offer ceramics.

Pink slips for programs

But both Cruz and Murphy said industrial and technical courses are not treated the same way at other district high schools. At McNair, for example, there is a cooking class and Bear Creek has several successful academies where students learn alongside perfecting a job-related skill.

Nichols-Washer said that during a tight budget year, "unfortunately" electives do get cut because they are not among the required courses.

"Saying that it's a result of us not wanting to offer those classes ... it's a bigger picture than that," she said. "We would love to offer agriculture or industrial shops at ever school, but we just can't."

McNair's cooking class, for example, may fall victim to the district's budget ax.

Bravo's Top Chef contestant and Stockton native Michael Midgley took over the ailing course at the beginning of the calendar year only to be informed his services likely wouldn't be needed for the 2009-10 school year.

"It sure was a shock to be told I might not have a job a month after I started," he said. "They keep telling me not to worry and that they already have 170 students signed up for next year."

But the part-time caterer said he isn't sure what will become of the program or students next school year.

Instrumental music, too, is facing cuts districtwide. That doesn't bode well for new Lodi High band leader Joshua Butterfield, who received a pink slip.

"I'm not sure exactly what's going on with program," he said, adding that Principal Bill Atterberry supports it.

"I don't think there's any intent of cutting the music program." He just might not be teaching it, because he is a first-year teacher. Those with seniority and even at the elementary school level could be put into Butterfield's position. "I think you're creating unhappiness in teachers who don't want to teach certain subjects. It all has to do with budget cuts."

In the end, Murphy's complaint, too, isn't about losing his teaching position; he has a physical education credential and 20-plus years of seniority, so if his department is eliminated, he can teach P.E.

"I have a job, but it's not my passion. I am a shop teacher."

Contact reporter Jennifer Bonnett at jenniferb@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

Lodian wrote on May 13, 2009 11:12 AM:

" Lou: Your incoherent babbling doesn't make you look good. Is the fact that I was up after midnight all you've got to attack me? LOL! I think your previous responses just confirm my suspicions about you.

Doctor heal thyself. "

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