How do you know a new era has just dawned for the School District and the School Board?
The atmosphere was different at last night’s Board meeting when Acting Supt. Patty Jaffe — a 40-year veteran of Culver City schools who never thought she would hear the phrase again — made her debut.
On the occasion of Ms. Jaffe coming out, Board member Scott Zeidman succeeded in his 2½-year quest to put a cap on enrollment throughout the Culver City district.
And those are the two best reasons for recognizing that the Myrna Rivera Coté administration officially is over and new times are here.
Before discussing the cap plan, which was unanimously approved, Mr. Zeidman saluted the new lady in the Superintendent’s chair, even if the letters “a-c-t-i-n-g” are painted atop it.
“Patty did a phenomenal job,” said the vice president of the School Board.
“She was on top of everything. She had answers to questions ahead of time, before the questions were even asked. She anticipated a lot of subjects were going to come up. She was clear and decisive about what she was going to do.
“When we asked for something to be done,” and here Mr. Zeidman slowed his narrative to a crawl, “it wasn’t ‘ohhhhh-kayyy.’ It was snappier. ‘Okay, we’ll have it on the next agenda.’
“Her answers to the Board were exactly as we would expect our only and best employee to respond.
“She gave the appearance and feeling that she was in control, which she was. I don’t think she could have scripted a better first meeting.”
Ms. Jaffe herself almost had a What’s the Big Deal? look about her this afternoon.
“My philosophy is that you go and do the very best job you can,” she told the newspaper. “Of course, I have watched many superintendents. I went in and did the job I thought needed to be done.
“The difference last night was having more responsibility. You are in charge of making sure the students of Culver City get the best education possible.”
Briefly, Ms. Jaffe smiled and laughed.
“You are not just in charge of a small group,” she said. “You are in charge of everyone.”
Did last night feel differently from 40 years of other educational appointments?
“Yes,” Ms. Jaffe said. “Just knowing that your responsibility now is to follow through, the directions of the Board and help them make decisions regarding the education of the students and student achievement.
“So yes, it did feel different.”
There Is a Limit
Cap is the rage in many fields across the country, and now it has come to Culver City in an attempt to alleviate overcrowded schools.
“Finally,” Mr. Zeidman said with a sigh, “we now have a cap on enrollment in our sixth through 12th grade classes — at 500 students per class.
“It certainly is a soft cap, only because we can’t cap out resident students.”
Then he sought to frame the biggest decision of the year into appropriate context:
“Let’s assume, for a moment, that we have an unlimited number of permit students from LAUSD. Not true, but for our purposes right now, that is okay.
“Our cap, not our goal, our cap on all classes now is 500 students. If we already are above that cap, don’t accept any more permit students. If we lose students, don’t replace them.
“Our schools are too crowded,” Mr. Zeidman said. “You can look at things many different ways. I can put more and more benches or desks in classrooms and say ‘Capacity for this class is 44.’ We could have more portables and have a bigger capacity.
“If you did it that way, arguably, you could probably fit 3,000 kids into the high school (where present enrollment is about 2,100).
“Except, the hallways are not sufficient for 3,000 kids. The kitchen and the cafeteria are not sufficient for 3,000 kids.
“At some point, you have to say, ‘This is the number we want.’
“How did we come up with this number? We have been asking for studies, and studies tell us the number of desks that fit. But that does not solve the problem.
“We need a reasonable number so kids can feel safe on campus, so they can go to the next class without bumping or getting hit, go to the cafeteria, find a place to sit and maybe not have to wait the entire lunch period to get their food.
“Finally, we took it on our own to say ‘This is the number.’ It is unscientific, but this is what it is,” Mr. Zeidman said.
