Two years into Bill Sanderson’s tenure as superintendent of the Los Gatos Saratoga Union High School District, a slow-burning tension around his management style has suddenly escalated into some parents and teachers considering calling for his resignation.
They say they’re frustrated by what they see as the superintendent’s refusal to meet and consult with them before making sweeping decisions that affect the community, and by resistance from trustees and other district officials to hearing their concerns.
Those tensions came to a head at a September district board meeting in which trustees voted unanimously to renew Sanderson’s contract. Teachers, parents and students have pledged to make their presence felt at two community meetings that the district scheduled at Saratoga High School over the next two weeks for an “open two-way discussion.”
Sanderson told this news organization when he arrived at the district in 2022 that his goal was to bring the community together, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, and he said in an interview Friday that he still feels the same.
Sanderson said collaboration and community engagement are central to his approach to leadership, citing his work to put together a strategic plan for the district last spring as an effort that relied on hundreds of community members participating in focus groups and meetings.
He encouraged people who may be unhappy with his leadership to get involved with groups he works with like the superintendent’s parent advisory committee, the student advisory committee and the strategic plan implementation team. He believes the tension with community members is specific to a small group at Saratoga High School, though Wednesday’s meeting was attended by around 100 parents and students.
“I have an isolated group that has concerns, and we’re trying to meet with them and hear their concerns, but that’s an isolated group at one school,” he said. “That’s where I’m hearing the majority from right now.”
“I would say please join one of our groups, we have multiple opportunities for folks to be involved,” he said.
Jen Young, president of the District Teachers Association – the union that represents almost 200 teachers across the district – said Sanderson had prioritized bringing the district up-to-date during his time on the job. But he hasn’t always kept teachers and staff and the two schools in the district in the loop, she said.
“I hear from a lot of people all the time that the district is very top-down, and they’re making decisions, and we don’t know why they’re changing things at the site, and it’s not good for teachers, therefore it’s not good for kids,” she said.
Young, who expressed concern about the trustees’ renewal of Sanderson’s contract at their Sept. 24 meeting, said the renewed contract gave Sanderson the same 8% raise that the District Teachers Association secured earlier this summer after extensive negotiations.
“The teachers were more trying to push that that’s not a good practice to just give everyone the same percentage, because we make vastly different salaries, and they’re just going to continue to widen the gap between our classified staff and our certificated and our management,” Young said.
At its core, Young said, Sanderson’s arrival has coincided with a widening gap between the teachers and staff who work at the Los Gatos and Saratoga high school campuses, and assistant superintendents and other staff who work at the district.
Frustrations have also been mounting for parents – a change.org petition titled “End Dysfunctional Leadership, Pay our Teachers & Maintain our School Programs & Traditions” garnered over a thousand signatures as of Oct. 11. The petition cited several concerns, but ultimately called for the district’s board of trustees to offer more transparent communication with the community and ensure that the superintendent “engages” with the community, among other demands.
Alicia de Fuentes, president of the Saratoga Music Boosters, said the group has been frustrated with the district and superintendent recently after noting an increased difficulty, and sometimes refusal, to send music students on longstanding international trips.
She said this year also marks one of the first in recent years where Saratoga High School didn’t hold, due to resistance from the district, a concerto – a competitive music showcase where students perform solo with the accompaniment of a full orchestra, that they record and then rely on to include in college applications.
Those concerns from the music community came to a head at a town hall meeting hosted by the Saratoga Music Boosters on Wednesday. The group, a nonprofit that supports music education at schools in the Los Gatos Saratoga Union High School District and the Saratoga Union School District, called the town hall meeting so members of the community could meet to discuss how they wanted to address the superintendent and the two trustees who will be at the two district-sponsored community meetings this month, de Fuentes said.
The town hall drew about 100 attendees, and calls for a vote of no confidence in the superintendent and a recall of the trustees that supported him were met with deafening applause from the parents and students in attendance.
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de Fuentes, who has been involved with the Saratoga Music Boosters for four years, said the group didn’t have similar problems scheduling international travel with the previous superintendent.
“He was the type of leader you want — the one you don’t notice,” she said.
Sanderson disagreed.
“I think that we need to have outward and inward facing communication as an open channel,” he said.
Though the petition stops short of calling for Sanderson’s resignation or a recall of the trustees who support him, Young said she wouldn’t be surprised if more formal calls for his resignation come about in the near future.
“I feel like we’re headed in that direction if something doesn’t change soon,” Young said.