Of the dozen persons seated around the semi-circular desk at the head of the Board Room, only Interim Supt. Patti Jaffe had reason to feel awkward.
This is what it feels like to be a celebrity.
All 80 persons and their160 eyes were centered on Ms. Jaffe’s attractive face. The eyes and their owners came to cheer for her at last night’s School Board meeting to adjust her contract and qualify her for permanent employment.
Even when the few criticisms of her blossomed, her permanently poker expression firmly held.
She never flinched. Or came close.
To casual observers and intimate pals alike, her apple-rosy cheeks give the impression that Ms. Jaffe is on the border of breaking into an authentic grin. You wait. Patiently. Check back five minutes later. She still is at the brink, without ever fully committing.
Often she glowed — not a whopper, just demurely as if she were a debutante attending her debut, and she wanted her expression to look as if she had been practicing her whole life.
Eighteen persons from a crossection of the community stepped to the microphone. Seventeen contributed toward a mountain of red roses at her feet, giving that rarest form of praise, the honest kind, for her 40 friendly years in Culver City.
A Single Exception
The only students and parents who do not like or love Patti Jaffe are those who have not yet been to Culver City, someone said.
“I feel very blessed to be in a district where people care,” Ms. Jaffe told the newspaper this morning. “I am also blessed to know that when you have worked in one place for so many years, people still believe in you, respect you and trust in you.”
When Liz Mejia, a cancer-stricken teacher from El Marino Language Immersion School thanked Ms. Jaffe for “saving my life,” the near-tears Super said, “That got me. That killed me. It was wonderful.”
She asked how she had fared on maintaining a poker face.
“Splendidly, with aplomb,” she was told. “Except near the end, you nearly blushed after the vote.”
Did Ms. Jaffe feel in a clumsy position?
“It is awkward to sit there,” she said, “and know that some people want you, some don’t, and some people have strong disagreements with the process.
“So, yes, it is uncomfortable,” the once and future (?) Super said with a smile.
