The fastest 45 minutes south of Juneau and north of Rio this morning was dynamic Josh Arnold’s roaming, restless, rousing oratorical fireworks about his intentions for lifting the Culver City Unified School District students and families to the stratosphere.
Like irresistible, calorically exploding icing on a cake, Dr. Arnold enriched his drive-by talk with audience-participation videos that may have tempted some to protest he stopped too soon. Said he could declaim for 10 minutes or 10 hours.
Nobody slept. Nobody could afford to listen passively. They had to scootch forward in their seats at the Courtyard by Marriott, Fox Hills. Their eyes needed several hours’ rest after their pupils darted from left to right to left and back again when Dr. Arnold spoke with bubbling enthusiasm about record-setting goals for his pupils.
He means to involve parents as participants, not gimlet-eyed observers.
He is a newcomer to Culver City and his audience is not.
He caught them off-guard when he identified 11 schools in the District, not the commonly accepted seven. Dr. Arnold included the Office of Child Development, the iAcademy, the Adult School and Culver Park High.
In abbreviated, memorable bursts – like a realistic in-person spot ad for the School District – Dr. Arnold belted out two headlines about the new centerpiece of his life.
When Dr. Arnold, the new superintendent, swiftly lifted the microphone out of its holder, he could have been Michael Jordan with a basketball, Mickey Mantle with a baseball bat creating big-time noise. Like Jordan and Mantle, they were made for each other.
Dr. Arnold spoke with rapidity and clarity – mainly to motivate the men and women of Culver City commerce to support/join his crusade for not only higher grades but the ultimate, shooting for 100 percent scores for 100 percent of students.
- “If you shoot for 92 percent, you will stay there,” he said.
- “School is about human beings and relationships.”
- “The School District is about legacy and about family,”
Between 8:15 and 9 o’clock, the constantly pacing Dr. Arnold – a top tier motivational speaker — traveled farther than anyone in his Chamber of Commerce audience had from their homes to Fox Hills. When he stopped, he had not nearly exhausted his material or his audience. It was like ending a game in the second inning.
