Perhaps you are curious, as we were earlier today, about the current state of the ACLU’s intriguing interest in last summer’s transfer of the campus of Culver City High School.
There is no urgent need for you to summon a covey of friends to join you in celebrating or mourning the denouement of The Strange Case That Never Was, as principals like to regard it.
Inquiries were directed at Brooks Allen of the ACLU who was in charge of the investigation that was not officially an investigation but a kind of drive-by, and Dave LaRose, superintendent of the School District.
Said the latter: “Haven’t heard from him.”
Said the former: “I don’t have any news or updates to share with respect to Culver Park High School. Just to clarify, there is not, nor was there ever, litigation or a ‘case’ regarding Culver Park High School.”
We take this to mean that if there was a problem, it was satisfied – just a hundred and fifty miles from view of the community.
If there wasn’t a problem, why are we investing in this space?
Whose turn is it to deal the next hand?
At stake was whether the asphalt campus setting behind the Culver City Middle School and Farragut Elementary – where orphaned Culver Park, a continuation school, reluctantly was moved after being evicted from the El Marino Language School campus – conformed with the state Education Code.
Unannounced publicly, the ACLU floated into town in mid-story, as retiring Super Patti Jaffe was leaving and before new Super LaRose had arrived. Sort of like the mother-in-law, luggage draping from every appendage, who moves in, unannounced, with newlyweds before they return from their honeymoon.
From the scanty available evidence, the thrust appears to be that when Mr. LaRose reported from Washington state at the outset of August, he hurriedly, thoroughly cleansed the untidy, Ed Code-challenging ends of the campus left lingering when Ms. Jaffe departed at the end of June.
The most brilliant stroke was hiring the hugely upbeat Veronica Montes as principal – that evidently cured every nagging doubt and turned around most or all negative attitudes.
The ACLU’s movements throughout have been confined to the shadows.
On Aug. 30, the week before school opened, Mr. Allen told the newspaper:
“I can share that Superintendent LaRose sent additional documents to us this week in response to my most recent letter. We are reviewing them now. At this juncture, we still have significant questions about whether the intended home for Culver Park High School has been adequately inspected and evaluated to ensure it meets the minimal health and safety standards for a k-12 facility.”
Intriguing, but that was all.
Without a body, is there a murder?
Without a “case,” can Culver Park be pronounced recovered – even though none of the ailments was the school’s fault?
