December 10, 2007
By Patty Fisher
The old Berryessa branch library doesn't look like much these days. Plywood covers the windows. Mold grows inside the walls. An ugly construction fence keeps vandals away from the building, which has stood vacant for more than two years.
Some nearby residents look at the abandoned Noble Avenue building and imagine a neighborhood child care or senior center. Others imagine razing it to make room for more parking for the lovely new Berryessa library next door.
Then there are the folks at Pathfinder High School, an alternative school for 40-60 students crammed into temporary quarters in the back of a drafty warehouse near Julian Street and Highway 101. They look at the old library and see a permanent home, something Pathfinder desperately wants.
"There's green grass there, lots of space, things people take for granted in a school," said Paula Mitchell of the Santa Clara County Office of Education, who has been looking for a permanent site for the school. "It would be so nice not to be a vagabond."
But when the neighbors of the tidy middle-class neighborhood imagine Pathfinder in their old library, they see trouble. The school serves kids who couldn't make it at big, public high schools. Some are into gangs or drugs. Berryessa parents don't want those kids near the library or the surrounding park, where students from nearby Noble Avenue Elementary and Piedmont Middle schools hang out in the afternoon.
"The parents are concerned about a mixing of their kids with kids who are disadvantaged," said Mike Flaugher, president of the Berryessa Citizens Advisory Council. "This is not to say that alternative school kids are inherently bad, but some people see it that way."
Joe Fimiani, interim county schools superintendent, argues that the kids from Pathfinder are the community's kids. Though perhaps not from the immediate neighborhood, most of them come from East Side Union High School District. He said they will be closely supervised and don't pose a danger to the neighborhood.
"The majority of them are kids who just got lost in the big system," he said. "They desperately want to get it right."
Pathfinder was founded in 2005 as a charter school. With small classes, dedicated teachers and a family-style atmosphere, it rescues kids from the brink and helps them succeed, sometimes for the first time in their lives.
"They should make all schools like this," said student Maria Lara, 16, who started high school at Lincoln in San Jose. "There I was like, 'Why should I go where nobody cares about me or helps me?' But here, I like to come because the teachers, they actually care about you."
Though Pathfinder earned great reviews, the charter had trouble raising money. It was about to close when the county office took it over early this year and began looking for a permanent location.
In the meantime, the city of San Jose was looking for someone to rent the old library for $1 a month. Several groups initially expressed interest, but only two submitted proposals: the county office of education and MACSA, representing Pathfinder, and Silicon Valley Future Stars, a group that works with youths. Deputy City Manager Mark Linder hopes to have a decision this month.
Councilman Kansen Chu, who represents the Berryessa area, sounds leery of Pathfinder.
"I think they're all good kids," he said. "I'd definitely want to help them get back on the right track. But I don't want any of the residents to bear any negative consequences from their presence here. I'm just not sure it's the right location."
Other neighbors I spoke with said the same thing: Those kids deserve a nice school, but does it have to be right here?
Which means that if Pathfinder does get the old library building - and I hope it does - the students will have to earn the community's trust.
Fimiani is confident that the school will be a neighborhood asset, not a problem.
"We don't have any kids who would pose a threat to the people there," he said. "These kids deserve a better school. And they deserve respect."
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Contact Patty Fisher at pfisher@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5852.
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