[Editor’s Note: The community’s only opportunity to meet ‘n greet new Supt. Dave LaRose before he starts work will be tonight, 6 to 7:30, in an informal setting at the School District offices, 4034 Irving Pl.]
Just like radio days, Dave LaRose looks and sounds the same way he did over the telephone from Washington state a few days ago.
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The LaRose Family, From left, Mindi, Madison, 18, Lyndsi, 22, and Dave LaRose
On his second full day in town yesterday, the tall 6-foot-2, trim, crew-cut Mr. Rose more closely resembled a mature athlete than the new Superintendent of the School District.
Aren’t Supers supposed to look and act dowdy, wear last-century dresses and utter threadbare pieties?
No more.
Freshly returned from lunch with School Board Vice President Kathy Paspalis, the 46-year-old Mr. LaRose, decked out in a checked, lemon-colored sport shirt, looked as ready for the Summer Olympics as Michael Phelps.
Tennis anyone?
After an exhausting weekend drive from Washington with his father-in-law in a 16-foot rental truck – they left Friday at 3, arrived Saturday at 5:30 – shlepping some of the family belongings to their new home, Mr. LaRose was out early yesterday morning for a beach-adjacent five-mile run.
The last Culver City Super to sprint five miles before breakfast left town the day before the district was organized.
When a visitor took a seat at Mr. LaRose’s new desk, he demurred, suggesting a more casual seating arrangement across the room.
The first and last most impressive dimension of Mr. LaRose’s interviewing technique was that, unlike a number of administrators, he looked his visitor in the eye. Never did his range stray.
What he said was not as vital to the scales as how he said it, comfortably. He looked hungry to start.
Motoring down the coast, did Mr. LaRose feel as if he were going home or entering a strange land?
“A combination of both. Pre-game jitters. My daughters the actresses, the pre-stage butterflies.
“It’s eager anticipation, not a fear or anxiety as much as it is enthusiastic anticipation.”
He wouldn’t say that he could be comfortable just anywhere.
“If you are comfortable with who you are and what impact you want to have, you can apply that in the right places.”
What should the community know about Supt. LaRose?
He grinned.
“You may have picked up on this. I am verbal, a little. It would be important for them to recognize that I value family, children deeply. Some things that may be perceived as cliché are really important to me, such as ‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’ That is so important.
“Moms and dads want to know that their children will be in an environment where people care about them, first and foremost.
“Once you get past that, we can talk about curriculum, instruction, assessment, needs, strengths and plans to get ahead.
“First, family is very, very important to me, personally (that was the first reason he gave for applying here, to be near his high school-graduate and UCLA-graduate daughters). It’s important to model that. They will be able to see how much I value and love my wife and daughters; therefore, how much I respect their family as well.”
Mr. LaRose may not see himself as a philosopher…but, “with something as complex as children, helping them develop and grow in education, there is no silver bullet. But you need to have clarity about what you feel your purpose is.”
Why did Mr. LaRose choose a career in K-12 rather than in the university system?
“Because I always have been inspired by that moment where the light goes on. It’s exploratory. It’s developmental. You start to fuel a passion that becomes a pathway.
“Later, in higher ed, that is when the pathway has been established. It is more targeted, more clinical whereas this is more organic and personal.”
The Last Leg
Breezing into Culver City at the weekend for a whirlwind get-acquainted half-week visit to the School District, Mr. LaRose flies back home tomorrow for 10 final days.
A week from Saturday, Mr. LaRose and his wife Mindi will step into the family car and begin a 1200-mile drive from Port Orchard down the coast to their new professional home. The seal will be broken on Wednesday, Aug. 1.
