The frequently blamed School Board was equally measured, open, honest.
The Targets, as they are known, comported themselves with the polish, the directness and the sensitivity that impressed an objective observer.
Facts Without Varnish
The professionals who run the School District Supt. Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote, and Assistant Sups Diane Fiello, Patty Jaffe and David El Fattal wisely restricted their remarks to providing fundamental data explaining how Culver City reached do-or-dare in dropping select kindergarten classes.
As much as organizers of the overflow meeting tried to steer the theme to Here Is Why It Is Necessary to Eliminate 2.5 Kindergarten Classes from Three Schools, the parents would not let them.
El Marinos Night
El Marino, like it or not, was the star of the evening. It was purely artificial to discuss the wonderful quality of education offered at Farragut, La Ballona, El Rincon and Lin Howe.
Sheer detail. Only technically necessary.
Probably the most persuasive argument for retaining the full roster of kindergarten classes at El Marino was that, since it is a language immersion school, the child must enter at kindergarten or else.
Impersuadible
No matter how much the School Board and Dr. Cote said that declining enrollment was a District-wide headache and that the pain must be spread around, the El Marino people were not buying into the assertion.
The lopsided scene reminded me of a family reunion. All six married couples proudly arrived with their smart and handsome children.
But there was only one child the older relatives wanted to talk about because she had just won a prestigious award.
Equal? Not in Publics Eyes
No matter how avidly the egalitarian thinkers in the School District pound away at the theory that all five grammar schools are equal, they are not.
The community knows better. It is like lining up five persons. Four are 5-foot-10, one is 6-foot-1. You announce that all are of the same height. The public can plainly see that is not the case.
An Extraordinary Episode
In a recent email to complaining parents from El Marino, one School Board member implied that the critics were being selfish.
The Board member was reflective and wise in presenting the winless dilemma confronting the five of them.
It concerns me when there is so little concern about the District as a whole, which is what we, as a Board, have to deal with.
To think that any one program or school is better or more worthy than any other, is a serious concern to all of us on the Board.
A third concern is that you think the administration and the Board have some secret agenda to undermine El Marino and its programs
Nothing we do as a District, except things related to personnel, is done in secret. However, it is not required that we share all of our thoughts and plans.
Sometimes we need to invite public input. Sometimes we have to make decisions that have very limited options, and public input will make no difference.
That is why we were elected so we could make the best decisions for the welfare that we could, given the existing circumstances.
There is not one decision we make that doesnt make some people happy and cause others to feel sorry we were elected. It comes with the territory.
The School Board members answer shimmers with ballast and brilliance.
I believe any fair-minded El Marino parent would agree.
