Parents, Teachers React to Trustees’ Actions : Education: Two school board members’ decision to put children in private school spurs mixed reaction from community.

The decision by two San Diego city school trustees to send their children to private schools drew both positive and negative reactions from parents and teachers Thursday. “If they’re really committed to changing the system, I would assume they would believe in it enough to have their kids in the system,” said Shane Rose, the mother of two children at Ulysses S. Grant Elementary School in Mission Hills.

This fall, Trustee Shirley Weber took her son out of the gifted program at Encanto Elementary School and put him into the fourth grade at Community Preparatory School in Southeast San Diego, a private elementary academy focusing on the self-esteem of African-American children.

Her colleague and school board president Kay Davis has moved her middle daughter from Point Loma High School to University High School, a Catholic school, to finish her senior year.

Both have defended their decisions by saying they did what was best for their children, and for some parents who have children in public schools that was reason enough.

“I believe in meeting the needs of individual children, and parents feel they have to do it in different ways,” said Patty Eshleman, who has an eighth-grader at Roosevelt Junior High School and a first grader at Grant.

Weber, a trustee for two years, also has a seventh-grader at Gompers Secondary School and Davis, an eight-year member who is leaving her spot in December, has a younger daughter at Point Loma High.

In 1982, Davis moved her older daughter to La Jolla Country Day School for her junior high years.

One parent who defended the board members said that their insider knowledge of the school system might have contributed to their decisions to pull their children out.

“If you were that familiar with the public school system, you probably wouldn’t want your kids educated in the public schools,” said Bill Keane, who has two children and two stepchildren in public schools.

Keane said if he had the resources, he would put his children in private schools, too.

Some longtime activists in the PTA said that Weber, an advocate of better programs for Latino and black students, put her son into a private school to get the kind of education she has been fighting to install in the city’s public schools.

“She’s very into the African-American culture and she wants to ensure that her children receive the education about their culture,” said Denise Macias, a member of the Ninth District PTA, which represents schools in San Diego and Imperial counties. But Macias still questioned Weber’s actions. “In order for her to make sure the rest of the African-American children receive the education she wants them to receive, I think she needs to keep her kids in there (the public system).”

Two of the four candidates running for seats on the San Diego Unifed school board in November criticized the trustee’s actions but two others weren’t as bothered, saying that the decisions were parental and not political.

“I think every parent has an obligation to do the best they can for each one of their children and putting a child in a private school just means they think this is best for their particular child and they have the resources to do it,” said Sue Braun, a school board candidate.

In fact, a kindergarten teacher at Balboa Elementary School said she would put her two children in Catholic school if she could afford it, for religious reasons, and because private schools tend to be more disciplined.

“In a public school, you can’t even look at a kid and give him the evil eye,” said Socorro Mejia. “Kids and parents have all the rights these days.”

Another teacher, Lurie Center, who teaches math at Grant, said the two should not be trustees if they don’t have faith in the very school system they head.

“If you take a public office with the school system, it should indicate you have enough faith in that system,” Center said. “And you indicate that faith by having your kids in the system.”