Third in a series
Re “Much Wider Role for Parents in Summer Lunch and Learn”
[img]1551|right|Dave LaRose||no_popup[/img]The father of the (nutritious) bride – the School District’s second-year free Summer Lunch and Learn program at LaBallona Elementary – had just driven up to the campus in his favorite white pickup truck.
Tall, slender, smiling, congenial, his youthful crewcut and a favorite polo shirt giving him the presentation of a mature student, Supt. Dave LaRose was ready to inspect one of his most popular of numerous transformations.
He is irresistibly outgoing, but not too much, just right.
While his predecessors still were rising from their comfy desk chairs, Mr. LaRose already was out the door, across town, immersed hip-deep in a policy meeting.
Taking charge before the engine on his car cooled down two summers ago, he swiftly, imaginatively, quietly reversed the fast-failing crisis that was engulfing the Culver Park continuation school, en route to becoming a jewel of the LaRose tenure.
If you awaken him at 2:30 on any morning, within 30 seconds he will be prepared to deliver a compelling 22-minute oration to an audience of any size without ever repeating himself.
[img]2627|left|||no_popup[/img]For the first time in at least this century, Mr. LaRose, who never was a newcomer here, has made the School District, its leaders and followers, all feel comfortable with themselves.
In less than two years, Mr. LaRose expertly and seamlessly has performed massive plastic surgery on a once stodgy “community of schools,” as he likes to call his adopted hometown.
In 22 months, he has created more memorable phrases than all the writers for Jay Leno, David Letter, Jimmy Kimmel and Bertha Kimmel.
Seemingly overnight, he has de-aged the foot-dragging image and once-absent energy of the School District.
The remade District symbol now is a sunny-eyed perpetually upbeat young fella, a bundle of springs in his long-striding steps as he skateboards forth and back, across all of the school sites.
