Editor,
I applaud the school board for not wasting more staff time, energy and resources defending its indefensible unilateral decision to end summer early. If not rescinded, that policy – falsely touted as a truancy prevention measure – would have triggered a boycott with 75 percent truancy on any school days in August.
The school board is going to regret taunting parents who objected for not attending, because we are going to attend as often as we must to find out why the board falsely blamed public school employee unions for their decision to end summer early without disclosure to the community. We also want to know why the superintendent reportedly has been allowed to recruit her pals from former jobs to create what many parents see as a culture of cronyism in the school district.
We also want an accounting of tax dollars spent on contractors and consultants to perform educational management duties for which we already pay high salaried employees. Finally, if the board thinks sandbagging the City Council to get the social host ordinance passed is the end of that story they better think again. Use of false information by district employees who acted as political lobbyists at the taxpayer’s expense must never happen again.
It is time for the school board members to stop acting like martyrs when parents refuse to tolerate screw-ups. They ask us not to vilify them, but then they vilify parents who dare to speak out. We don’t need a school board that pretends to be a bunch of educational technocrats, and we don’t need high paid educators who act like politicians advocating policies not yet formally adopted by our elected leaders.
So see you at the next meeting.
Howard Hills, Laguna Beach
Bravo, Howard!