(See pdf below)
The ticking is growing louder this afternoon inside the time bomb that new School District Supt. Dave LaRose unexpectedly finds himself straddling a scant 17 days after starting the job.
His predecessor appears to have placed Mr. LaRose in a spectacularly awkward, undeniably vulnerable, position by misjudging the state of facilities to accommodate a crosstown move of Culver Park High School continuation students.
Judging by a strongly worded letter that the so-far-patient American Civil Liberties Union sent yesterday to Mr. LaRose, time is shrinking to correct a formerly secret series of blunders in the transfer of Culver Park.
For months, now-retired Supt. Patti Jaffe declared as fit – no questions asked, no doubts expressed – the two parking lot bungalows that were to be Culver Park’s new home.
The judgment was so wrong that the School District, sans announcement and out of public view, stealthily switched plans to utilize a third bungalow in the parking lot.
That abruptly elevated the previously ho-hum two months of inquiry-style correspondence between the ACLU and the School District to a more strident level.
Not exactly accusing the School District of failing to cooperate, the ACLU charged the District has yielded “little information.”
In his witheringly worded five-page letter, Brooks Allen, the ACLU’s Director of Education Advocacy, said of the latest reply to the civil rights group that was signed by Asst. Supt. Eileen Carroll, briefly the Interim Superintendent:
“In fact, the extremely limited, vague, and at times, nonsensical, responses serve only to raise further questions, particularly now that the district’s credibility has been undermined by previous claims regarding the portable classrooms that the district has now conceded are unsuitable and should be removed.”
Making allowances for Mr. LaRose’s newness, Mr. Allen suggested “alternate placements” for Culver Park students, and revisited the probing questions previously asked but “unsatisfactorily” answered.
He wrote:
“We understand you recently joined CCUSD and may be getting acclimated, but as we’re certain you will agree, CPHS students can’t be asked to wait for a school that meets minimum state health and safety standards and should not be treated like second-class students. Accordingly, we strongly urge you and your staff to carefully evaluate ‘Portable Building No. 1’ in consultation with your facilities experts and legal counsel and consider alternate placements for CPHS.”
To spare themselves further and mushrooming embarrassment, the District may yet have to swallow and reconsider the Adult School building on Overland Avenue, next door to the Julian Dixon Library.
Ms. Jaffe said in the spring that site was dismissed early as impractical because the cost of renovation would amount to $1 million.
Can the District still afford not to reconsider it?
After corresponding with the District for two months on the suspicion that Culver Park’s intended new setting fell seriously short of minimum standards, a legal clash may be nearing.
By appearances, the administration of Ms. Jaffe seems to have massively botched the hurried, vaguely planned transfer from the shared campus of El Marino Language School to an asphalt landing in the near of Farragut Elementary.
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