Word on the street the day before the School Board meeting was a bullseye:

Summer McBride, one of the hardest working, most popular, most eloquent moms at El Rincon Elementary, would be selected by the Board to immediately replace President Sue Robins, who is moving across the country.

At the sleepy hour of almost 11 o’clock last evening in Council Chambers, Mrs. McBride was the jubilantly received winner.

With Ms. Robins not only chairing her final meeting but ineligible to vote on her successor on the dais, the outcome may have looked closer than it was.

Partisans promptly and frequently cited two reasons for choosing Mrs. McBride to join the leadership team of the recently named fourth most diverse school campus in the United States:

• She is identified with El Rincon Elementary, which has not had one of its parents selected for many years, and
• She would be only the third black School Board member in history.

Others, however, maintained that Mrs. McBride’s long record of dedication to El Rincon and District students, her work ethic, her compassion, her extraordinary grasp of issues and innate ability to explain and resolve them – those gifts outflanked exterior considerations.

She will serve the remaining 20 months of Ms. Robins’s term until November 2018.

Lest anyone doubt her qualifications:

Mrs. McBride has been the first vice president of the Culver City Council of PTAs, the corresponding secretary of the El Rincon PTA, a member of the El Rincon School Site Council, a member of the School District’s Inclusion, Respect, and Diversity Task Force, a president of the El Rincon PTA and executive vice president of the El Rincon PTA.

As the 2½-hour process ambled on, the field of 16 applicants quickly and decisively was whittled to four finalists:

Jerry Chabola, Anne Diga Jacobsen, Marti Paez and Mrs. McBride.

This was a tough showdown, and under different circumstances, it might have been a true horse race with four necks simultaneously reaching across the finish line.

A Muscular Field

No one displayed a weakness. All were liked. They rewarded their coveys of supporters by demonstrating the acceptable kind of insider knowledge that Board members are supposed to have.

The finalists were close enough to touch. But longtime watchers firmly sensed a McBride victory was inevitable.

Even before the final round of interviews got under way, there was a buzz — touting Mrs. McBride — streaking across Council Chambers

The closing moments were appropriately dramatic.

Ms. Diga Josephsen, a lawyer with the Los Angeles Community College District, another potential Board powerhouse, was Mrs. McBride’s main, and really only close, rival.

Board members are quite fond of Mr. Chabola, retired teacher/athletic director, who holds the world record most Board meetings attended – and participated in – beyond 25 years.

When Ms. Robins asked colleagues to list their top three choices, Mr. Chabola made three of the four lists while Mrs. McBride and Ms. Jacobsen were on all four.

After individual questioning of the four finalists, Dr. Steve Levin urged his colleagues to make the selection unanimous.

A moment later, Anne Allaire nominated Mrs. McBride, who clearly had been groomed for her new role. Kathy Paspalis offered a second.

But when Dr. Kelly Kent suggested an alternative motion and nominated Ms. Jacobsen, the Board’s lawyer was consulted. The alternate motion was dropped, and the 4-0 vote for Mrs. McBride was deemed fitting.