Coincidentally, these are exactly the attributes that community critics have found lacking in the School District.
This creates a surplus-and-dearth matchup that could grow this professional marriage into a whopper. From a grayer perspective, these contrasting conditions also could cause the marriage to bomb. But since the honeymoon only began a month ago, it is too early to flirt with pessimism.
The Updated Model
At 58 years old, the Dr. Rivera Cote evokes an aura of authority, America’s idea of a present-century schoolmarm. Tall and stately, her flawlessly coiffed dark hair rivals her smartly tailored gray suit for classic perfection.
Her rimless eyeglasses, bespeaking a firm, unwavering hand on the wheel, complete an unerring portrait without disturbing the rhythm of the lines. True to her values, she studies her visitor eye to eye, answering directly, succinctly, congenially without lifting the window-shade an inch higher than intended.
Too Early
She is stern and disciplined without being offputtingly rigid. There will be no nonsense in her sobering presence. Even — or especially — in these early days, no one in Culver City, from the School Board on down, doubts that Dr. Rivera Cote is in charge.
She bears a single resemblance to her retired predecessor, who also was a woman. In a stroke of trivial irony, the two women dueled the dueled for the Superintendent’s position 9 years ago when her predecessor, the insider in the derby, was selected.
The Art of Conquest
Through 27 years in her more or less hometown of Long Beach, followed by far briefer stays in Alhambra and more recently for the LAUSD in Gardena, Dr. Rivera learned to navigate through the perilous waters of school boards, restless teachers, snippy fellow administrators and sharp-tongued community critics. Looking back, it may have come naturally. Teaching at 21, an administrator by the age of 30 when she had to consider her single-mom status, she never has felt a need to don blinkers or issue apologies for her agenda.
Concrete by comfortable choice in her reasoning and speaking — “maybe a little too concrete,” she concedes — there is no room for fogginess or vacillation in Dr. Rivera Cote’s milieu.
Keeping Her Distance
Vigorously committed to what has been an enormously rewarding career, she knows where to draw lines to compartmentalize her life and maintain order. Since 1971, she has lived in the same community, quite on purpose. After hours, Dr. Rivera Cote means to be distant from the faces of the workplace, the better to maximize the pleasures and fulfillment from the other nourishing sections of daily world.
Single through most of her career following an early marriage, she compounded her name two years ago when she married her attorney husband. Their relationship has only strengthened her yearning to completely separate from her working environment. Ever since she was chosen to be the new Super three months ago, Dr. Rivera Cote has been obliged to amend her normally inviolable off-hours schedule to accommodate meetings and social occasions with decision-makers and decision-hopers across Culver City.
A Few Surprises
Not all significant intersecting interests in Dr. Rivera Cote’s private life are predictable. For the hour-plus trip to and from Irving Place each day, she will tune her car radio to an all-news station or she will pop in a disc that will yield mellow melodies that may remind her of the many cruises she has taken. In an aside, the dazzling glow and tantalizing cultural distinctions of Paris make it her favorite city on earth. But the Cotes never will retire there. “Too expensive,” she says.
The Bronx native survived culture stun when her parents moved to sleepy Lakewood when she was 15 years old. Her father had been thrown out of work when the Brooklyn Navy Yard went dark. Young Myrna had to get used to swirling dust stirred up when horsey-types walked their steeds down the center of the street.
Taking a Wrong Turn
The solid-state personality Dr. Rivera Cote presents — the antithesis of an enigma — can, at least occasionally, lead a judgement-maker down a wayward path. Tendencies don’t always pan out. She may not be a rapt student of the daily horoscope, but, Aries that she is, the readings regularly are included in her portfolio. Being an Aries, she says it was predictable that she would rise to positions of leadership. Hardly a stoic, she does, however, make a u-turn inward more frequently than one might suspect.
Preferred Reading
A head-on professional by day, for pure relaxation at home, she loves thumbing through the latest issue of “People” magazine. Other times, she and her husband, their two dogs in tow, will wander to the nearby beach. Consistency is one of her beautiful values. Dr. Rivera Cote’s To-Do List starts every day of the year with talking to her parents, who most recently celebrated their 59th year of the Triple Crown, togetherness, bliss and marriage.
Guilty or Innocent?
For women of a certain age, it is a legal obligation for a visiting journalist to inquire after an accomplished hostess’s feminist proclivities. Are they subtle, afire or on the moon? This was a particularly pertinent inquiry in the case of Dr. Rivera Cote. The first meaningful promotion of her career was detoured because the promoter-in-chief arrived at the unsurprising conclusion that she was a woman. Having previously determined that the available posting was unsuitable for non-men, the promoter-in-chief left Dr. Rivera Cote with the single option of tapping her toes, mentally, until the age of enlightenment dawned.
The Old-Fashioned Way
Even this momentary disappointment — which looked much deadlier at the time because it would have meant a helpful pay hike — did not convert her into a feminist. At the mere mention of the term, sunshine broke through her handsome face because she knew what she was going to say.
Dr. Rivera Cote a feminist? Surely you jest. “My father wouldn’t let me be a feminist,” she said with a devilish grin.
Dad Said So
Reflecting earlier on a cozy and loving childhood in the company of her parents, Dr. Rivera Cote knew as a young girl that she was going to be a successful professional. Her Puerto Rican-born father, with gentle firmness and firm gentleness — her own favorite qualities — ordained that she would etch a difference in whatever landscape she chose. Her father’s main imprint remains, the value that she was capable of scaling the heights in any field she selected, strictly on the basis of merit, not because she was a person of one kind or another.
When Trust Is Appropriate
Realism, for all of her growing up and grown-up years, has been her vehicle of choice. Psychologists warn practitioners of realism against the dangers of skidding over the line into cynicism. A cynic she is not, says Dr. Rivera Cote. Skeptical? Well, maybe. Fifteen years in New York City taught her the usefulness of skepticism.
“I am probably too concrete,” she laughs, again. “But if you’re born in the Bronx, you have to see it, you have to know about it first. Maybe I am a little skeptical, but not too much. I don’t trust, though, it until I can trust it.”
(To be continued)
