From studying Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote every other Tuesday night at School Board meetings, there was no way to discern that considerable dissatisfaction brewed strongly just beneath her stoic surface.
Nor did she even hint at any reasons two weeks ago this afternoon when she mass emailed the five Board members to tell them that in 30 days she would be moving — abruptly — to her next posting in Pico Rivera.
Dr. Cote’s unrest was not a bulletin to some Board members. However, her here-and-gone departure caught them unprepared.
Drawing on comments from persons around Dr. Cote but not the Superintendent of the Culver City Unified District herself, Culver City’s inability to meet her financial needs and her unhappiness with so-called drifting agendas of the School Board brought her situation to a boil.
Friends say the modest-performing El Rancho Unified School District found her, but if they had not made the first move, she would have. Culver City was not going to be her future.
Start with Dr. Cote’s salary. When she came here from the South Bay, according to friends, she was said to have been promised $180,000 but eventually settled for $175,000 after being told that “if she did a good job the first year” her pay would be bumped up $5,000.
It was an ongoing vexation with Dr. Cote that more than 75 percent of the 84 superintendents in Los Angeles County earned higher salaries.
The second point of irritation is cloudier and less easily explained.
Dr. Cote’s friends say that she is eager to plunge into a blue-collar neighborhood where, she is convinced, the School Board and the other district leaders are lasered in on education rather than social issues of distraction that she believes interfere with Culver City board business.
Interim Superintendent
A fortnight after Dr. Cote’s relative bombshell, the School Board has not decided what to do about a temporary replacement for the next six months.
When City Manager Mark Scott shocked City Hall the first of February by suddenly quitting, the City Council needed two months to put a replacement in office.
The School Board has three weeks to hire a temporary Super. They will meet in Closed Session for the second Monday in a row to strategize.
Patricia Jaffe, the retiring Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources, would be the obvious and easiest in-house hire — if agreement can be reached.
Wryly, a woman who has spent numerous years in the District Office, said this afternoon “that “this Board is so unpredictable, I would not dare speculate whether they would go for Patty, my choice, or prefer a recently retired Superintendent who might be available.”
Other sources say that the choice must be a person with a firm grip on the job.
The three Assistant Superintendents (actually one of those positions has been downgraded to “Director”) are green. In experience, they range from brand new to four months to one year on the job. They will need clear direction.
Meanwhile, one-third of the way through June, School Board sources said there is no urgency to complete a temporary appointment.
