Second in a series
Re “Why a Flareup Against the Fledgling UPCC?”
[img]2189|right|Scott Kecken||no_popup[/img]You sit down with officers of United Parents of Culver City because recent developments across the community have made it undeniable that the mere silent presence of the parents’ union arouses outsized, sometimes inexplicable, emotions.
Before his lunch arrived at the still-new Lyfe restaurant, Scott Kecken, Chair of the PAC for the United Parents of Culver City, was asked a central question:
Why do you think activities of the year-old parents union were the focus of several probing, prepared questions for School Board candidates when teachers and classified employees held their endorsement meeting?
“I don’t know,” Mr. Kecken said. “I can speculate.”
If you speculated, what would you say?
“I really don’t know.
“I have heard rumors, too, things people are saying about UPCC, that we hate teachers, that we are anti-union. I just responded to something like this from a Pat Carroll. I don’t think there is a real Pat Carroll.
“Basically, she was using hate. ‘Hate’ is a strong word. Once you use that word, it puts you into the extremist category. Her remarks were absurd, reckless, unfounded.
“Her message was that we are teacher-haters. She wrote that UPCC is composed of 15 teacher-hating parents, which is one-tenth of our size, No. 1.
“No. 2, I am a teacher.
“Do I hate myself?
“I belong to two different unions, including a faculty union. It is just absurd.”
Mr. Kecken is big, friendly, open-faced. Across the booth from him, you have the impression the father of one student at La Ballona Elementary will deal candidly without resorting to mincing.
“I am not going to attack a person who makes such charges,” he said. “Obviously we have an issue that goes beyond what we are trying to do, which is pretty mundane.
“Maybe we are a threat because we are organized. I don’t see why, though.”
Mr. Kecken said that having parents from throughout the School District together under one tent was a major UPCC objective a year ago last spring when they were founded.
“It helps us, for the first time, for parents from throughout the District to talk to each other and solve problems that probably otherwise would go unsolved.
“We have done a lot in the year and a half we have been organized. Little things. But little things make a difference,” Mr. Kecken said.
“For example, there was a different policy in place at every school for how parent organizations were charged for a permit.
“Let’s say you wanted to have an after-school program. Each school had a different policy. Some parents were being charged, some weren’t.
“We sat with (second-year Supt.) Dave LaRose.”
Then Mr. Kecken said what hundreds of others, separately, have declared in the past 14 months:
“Everything shifted when LaRose was hired. Like, the whole culture shifted.”
[img]1994|right|Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin||no_popup[/img]Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, elected president of UPCC earlier this year, was seated beside Mr. Kecken.
“I am so impressed with him and what he has done,” she said.
“He is very easy to talk with and work with. He is open to hearing feedback, and he is not afraid to give his opinion.
“He does what he says he is going to do,” said Ms. Wisnosky Stehlin, “an extremely honorable trait.”
(To be continued)
