First of two parts
At precisely the appointed minute this morning, tall, dapper state Sen. Curren D. Price Jr. (D-Culver City) strode into an ante room on the spacious campus of the Culver City Middle School, greeted by a roundtable of low-key but passionate opinionholders — parents, teachers, administrators.
They were throbbing with answers to the senator’s tantalizing opening question: How are budget cuts affecting local communities?
Attired in a sport coat and open-necked shirt, the Sacramento visitor portrayed the casual, anti-stiff appearance legislators prefer when circulating through their far-flung districts at home. Sen. Price said he had come to the sun-splashed, sprawling Middle School campus to listen, not lecture. And that format was archly followed.
This was a showcase moment both for the first-term senator, seeking re-election, and for Culver City. Each party had an opportunity to take several steps back, stroke its chin in a sign of reflection, and conclude that this was going to be a pragmatic interlude, not a campaign photo-op.
For the following 30 minutes, Sen. Price, whose style is to hang just below the radar, quietly, and only intermittently, asked pointed, succinct, questions. Meanwhile, at his right hand, aide Fahizah Alim, in the parlance of the business, a recovering journalist, was transcribing copious notes, scarcely glancing up.
A Two-Lane Smile, in Both Directions
All schools in the District may assert that their campus is the handsomest in Culver City, but the Middle School was the senator’s landing zone. On a perfect late summer day, he had to be impressed with the spotless, shiny green, high-achieving school that included a fast-paced but revealing tour led by Middle School Principal Jon Pearson. Tourists and locals strolled past the eye-catching Butterfly Garden, admired the artful landscaping talents of scores of parents before curving into several classrooms, where maximal, sophisticated and imaginative learning was on crackling display.
No one at the table pleaded bashfulness.
Attaching a bolt of urgency to her response, School Board member Kathy Paspalis said it is frustrating that, once again this summer, the state Legislature has failed to come up with a budget, already more than two months tardy.
“This leaves us in the dark when we are trying to make a three-year plan,” she said, a sentiment that volleyed numerous times around a table where Mr. Pearson was comfortably in command.
Leslie Gardner, a Middle School parent, mentioned the disappointment of her two children when they returned this week to find that favorite classes had wound up on the south end of a sharp axe, budget cuts.
French, art, ceramics and music were among electives reluctantly deemed expendable.
Responding to a question about the state of morale on campus in the wake of a bundle of program cuts and aching layoffs of popular non-teaching personnel, Mr. Pearson said that “we are managing.” He pointed out that API scores have been climbing steadily in recent years, and that has been a healthy bracer against fiscal negatives.
Talk turned to class sizes that are expanding and barely tolerable. They batted numbers around the room as if they were soccer balls, because that is the trajectory of class sizes, bounding and rebounding.
Interim Supt. Patty Jaffe, fitting into this firm but understated debate as comfortably as she had with her previous District postings, spoke about the bursting emotions linked to the legally prescribed March 15 deadline for notifying teachers they may be laid off at the end of the term.
(To be continued)
