Prom Night was a smash for United Parents of Culver City.
Skeptics did a drive-by, and hurriedly went home.
The eight-month-old parent union’s coming-out all-star promotion, last evening’s heavily attended safety forum planned in the smoky fumes of Newtown, not only dazzled but delivered on its most ambitious promises.
All while stressing that the seminar-type program on guarding against future campus invasions by madmen is not a panacea in any form – that only limited, but hardly foolproof, preparatory steps can be taken.
School District Supt. Dave LaRose, Police Chief Don Pedersen and School Resource Officer Al Casillas – like his chief, in uniform – expertly, and appealingly, answered every probing parent inquiry so thoroughly that several persons suggested they go on tour up and down the state.
Alan Elmont may have been the busiest fellow in the room. He was walking in circles, shlepping written questions from curious parents anywhere in the room to Scott McVarish in the front row, acting as the hand-off person for the moderator.
The peppery, gilded patter between wittily speed-speaking Mr. LaRose and his ideal stage partner, the exceedingly droll, drip-dry Mr. Pedersen was so entertaining that their gleaming exchanges sounded glibly scripted.
If the chief had been drier, his skin would have peeled.
If the Super had laced his million-word presentation with any further properly weighted humor, he would have had to trade in his education career for a life in show business.
Laura Jane Kessner, a United Parents leader and mother of a Lin Howe School student, was a star of the evening, too.
With professional élan, she moderated the fastest-paced, most information-rich program this town has seen in years.
When one mother complained insistently, at least three times, that her question had been insufficiently addressed, Ms. Kessner, for reasons of pragmatism and urgent etiquette, closed the door with finality, resisting the temptation to slam it shut.
Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, United Parents President for the past two weeks, successor to founding leader Steve Levin who stepped down fast, as planned, conclusively demonstrated she and her fellow officers know how to effectively knit together a disparate community on an emotion-based topic.
If a single parent left the Vets less than roundly assured, he or she probably should be seeing a therapist.
Among them, Messrs. LaRose, Pedersen and Casillas surrounded, thoroughly inspected and brimmingly responded to each inquiry.
Revealingly and no doubt helpfully, all three emphatically declared that on this night, while relying on the training of their professions to inform their answers, they were responding principally via their fulltime roles as fathers.
Another critical hallmark of their fulsome answers was that not a single idea was rejected out of hand. If they felt a suggestion did not immediately warrant outright acceptance, as in the case of panic buttons, they deemed the notion “worth consideration.”
Backed by Mr. Pedersen, Mr. LaRose repeatedly asserted one of his sturdiest, most familiar mantras, that every school is responsible for the whole child.
Interpreted, that means, he said, that while the School District doubtless will not hold the key that unlocks every single safety-related question, “we are the case managers for every student.”
Mr. LaRose explained that he meant when the District is stymied, it will take the child by the hand and lead him to the person or agency with a satisfactory solution.
The parent union’s address: unitedparentsculvercity.com
