Our School Board needs some of that kindness being touted lately.
Dee Perry is the only School Board member consistently bringing relevant, independent fact-finding and education research to its deliberations. She compromises, votes with the Board often, but there’s overt unkindness after she votes against the majority and dares to explain why in public.
Perry served successfully as Clerk in 2017, next in line for President as Jan Vickers rotated out. The Board’s formal rule is, “After serving one year as Clerk, the elected member may serve one year as president…”
Instead, at a special meeting on other topics in 2017, Board member Ketta Brown told Perry her independence and dissent undermined “unity” and disqualified her from being president.
Brown endorsed Vickers for another term, and Perry was isolated when Wolff, Normandin and Vickers agreed. Perry was told she could serve as Clerk again in 2018, and succeed Vickers in 2019, assuming Perry got re-elected in 2018.
Voters in 2018 found Perry fit to perform all duties and re-elected her. But at the annual organizational meeting after the election, Wolff, Normandin and Vickers ignored voters, refusing to give Perry her turn to preside (new member James Hall was absent on a business trip).
Wolff officiously told Perry “some people are not presidential material.” When “can-may-shall” ambiguity of rule was noted, Superintendent Viloria failed to remind the Board it needed to follow or change the provision also in the rule clarifying, “It is the intent of the Board that all members will rotate through the sequence of clerk and president.”
In 2014, Vickers was in line to be Clerk, and she vigorously argued it would be wrong if rotation was not honored, vociferously threatening “negative consequences” if she were passed over.
At the 2017 meeting, Brown offered to support extension of Vickers as president for another year, and Vickers happily agreed to abandon rotation to pass over Perry. But because election of officers was not on the meeting agenda, the Board’s decision to deny Perry’s turn was a prima facie Brown Act violation.
At the 2018 meeting was the first time the election of Board president was moved to end of meeting, and mysteriously, the video recording system experienced sudden blackout. Normandin nominated Vickers for a third term, pretending she misunderstood the debate and thought Perry surrendered her bid.
Good schools deserve better governance, starting with the Board either following or changing binding rules. Respecting diversity, and, yes, some kindness, could go a long way.
Howard Hills, Laguna Beach
Thank you, Howard, for exposing this blatant discrimination against Dee Perry, who has admirably served LB schools and the interests of the students for many years. This is bullying, pure and simply, and even worse its ‘political” bullying, symptomatic of our national politic. I understand that this school board also bullies and isolates Ms. Perry on other school board activities as well. The school board should do the right thing, which is have the current President step down and have a mid-year election of Dee Perry to that position. She has rightfully earned it. Thank you Dee for standing strong and keeping the light of transparency on at our school board.
LB
This is just one more example of the collusion and “I know better than you” atmosphere of the School Board. This is the same group that has met in private session, decided how they would all vote, and then in the public meeting has voted unanimously. Go back a few years, before Dee Perry got elected, and you will see all the votes are unanimous. They also tried to do an end run around parents about the calendar and that was only 2 years ago with only Dee Perry asking for parent input before it was formalized. There needs to be oversight on what this group of autocrats is doing to our school system and our school. It is appalling that they would deny Dee Perry her rightful tenure as President – because, as I understand it, only the President can add an item to the agenda. Those of us who voted for Dee have the right to have our issues presented. Otherwise the School Board is de facto disenfranchising us.
I am absolutely appalled that our elected school board professionals would act like, well, a bunch of school children.
The school board needs to grow up, and follow the bylaws that they have agreed to.
Let me guess……
The Russians hacked the video recording system??
Dee Perry is the only school broad member who not only listened to concerns about my child getting bullied, but did something about it. How sad, but not surprising, that our school board members bullied her. Women are not going to move ahead in politics until they learn to cross party lines and support each other.
This is outrageous that we vote people in this town, and bureaucrats who do not agree with our votes sabotage what the people want. Dee has done a great job (thus re elected) and these haters need to be punished. What can be done? I really mean it, they should be punished.
I am so deeply disappointed to hear this. Dee Perry is a woman of extraordinary spirit, integrity and compassion, and deserves far better. I have worked side by side with her on multiple projects and have always found her to be kind, caring, and perhaps most importantly, an upstanding human being. That she is being blackballed is profoundly disturbing.
Dee Perry is a woman of incredible character and dedication to her constituents, the children of Laguna Beach Schools. Dee is a woman of incredible integrity, knowledge and as stated in the previous post, “an upstanding human being”. I’m shocked and dismayed that this type of behavior would be allowed at a school board meeting!
Howard, you make some good points, but diversity is greatly overrated. How much diversity is there on basketball courts? Baseball diamonds? Attempting to achieve quotas can only be accomplished by discrimination, which is racist and wrong. Kindness is wonderful but I much prefer a brusque but competent manager or professional to one who is kind and clueless, lacking in wisdom and common sense.