First contact was a good step in the right direction

A great initial interaction with Cole Valley and lots of common ground to build on (updates below)

We had dinner with Matt Beglinger (current vice principal) and Brad Carr (previous superintendent). These were two of our previous basketball coaches, and I’ve had very tight friendships with both in the past.

But, a lot has happened. A lot has been said since the original post. Going into this, we weren’t sure what would happen, but we hoped for the best.

It was great to see them. A bit of ice was broken right there in the parking lot, but things remained somewhat tense for a while longer. We did some small talk and ordered our food.

We started off by sharing initial reactions to things that had happened, admitted that we weren’t totally sure about the motivations on both sides, and finally settled into talking about the issues.

All of us agreed that it’s not okay that people were and are hurting, or traumatized, and Cole Valley needs to listen and learn from this. They mentioned that, though the initial messages felt personal and gut reactions were defensive, feelings over time were more of compassion and empathy.

In fact, I was surprised to hear Matt and Brad say that they’d personally been bothered by many of these issues already, and they’ve been working to implement improvements for years.

I could actually hear the frustration in their voices. Not at us, but at the un-satisfyingly slow progress due to all the obstacles and stakeholders. At one point, Brad mentioned feeling disappointed that he couldn’t change more during his 11 year tenure.

They care. Deeply. And they feel personal responsibility for hurts and mistakes that happened on their watch. Though they mentioned that it’s often complicated, and reports aren’t always the whole story, they always wanted to keep kids safe, and tried to do the right things.

I truly believe that.

I explained what’s in it, all the work that we put into it, and what our goal was. Matt mentioned that this is basically what he planned to request from us as next steps, so he was thrilled. He even said, “This actually sounds pretty ground-breaking.” 🙌

Next steps are Matt and Brad reading the joint statement. And I offered video interviews. And we offered to come to Cole Valley to meet with the leadership team. And we even speculated about what a future, bigger-picture collaboration might look like — a committee of alumni, parents, staff, and pastors working together on improvements (got the idea from my dad’s interview).

Brad even said that it’s making him wish he was still in charge at Cole Valley, so he could aggressively work on changes with us. That felt so good to hear.

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