The old superintendent could not have left at a worse time, and the new superintendent could not have arrived at a better time.
Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote’s sudden resignation from the Culver City Unified School District on the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend — typically when the government inserts news it does not want people to notice — sparked urgent rounds of handwringing.
How could this have happened?
And with so little notice?
The people in the know weren’t saying that, at least privately.
Those reactions were for the crowds on the perimeter of the School District.
The inner circle, centering on the School Board, knew that Dr. Cote was increasingly unhappy with the tenor of meetings, the revised prevailing atmosphere.
She would have gone months earlier if she could have, friends said.
The more she looked, the more restless she became.
The winter of Dr. Cote’s discontent was followed by the spring of her discontent, and when the superintendency of the very different El Rancho Unified School District in Pico Rivera, she didn’t hesitate to embrace their juicy offer, perhaps $40,000 a year more.
The career road from Culver City to Pico Rivera is hardly traveled. Maybe it never has been.
But a much more robust contract, a school board dominated by educators who seem to have a narrower, more traditional focus than Culver City, appealed to her. Unlike Culver City where today’s vaunted test scores are in good condition, El Rancho’s direction is purely up a steep hill.
Such conditions would appeal to a new young administrator hoping to have his name carved in the hearts of influential people who can boost his budding career. Since Dr. Cote is closer to retirement than birth — Culver City once was going to be her last stop — the answer to this ticklish challenge will have to be held in abeyance.
For the past three weeks, there has been more drama throughout the School District than there is on a Saturday night in London’s West End over who would be Dr. Cote’s interim replacement.
Unless Patty Jaffe, the almost-retired, and universally admired, Asst. Supt. Of Human Resources, had been kidnapped by Martians while Dr. Cote was resigning, the School Board was posturing over the easiest question it had faced since the first grade.
Because a certain amount of realpolitik is mandatory in such settings, some drama was understandable.
Bypassing Ms. Jaffe would have been the academic equivalent of choosing a dog over, say, Angelina.
