I dont think Myrna Cote is going to be here long enough to grow old or gray on the job. I will be surprised if she stays longer than her original 3-year contract, and perhaps not that long if she encounters resistance that is too stiff.
Changing Faces
But for as long as she will drive each very early morning from Huntington Beach to Culver City, the Districts schools are going to be closely monitored and run with a professional tightness that will enhance their reputations.
The elected faces of Culver City will be changing drastically in the short term. A year from this month, 3 of the 5 members of the City Council will be sidelined by term limits.
No Exceptions Here
The School Board changes may be just as radical perhaps also 3 out of 5 just as soon.
Will the new Board members be strong-willed or flap-a-doodles, inquiring parents want to know?
Unlike a person or two who shall go nameless, to protect the spectacularly ineffective, Ms. Cote brings an agenda, a carefully followed work list and a traditional work ethic.
This is a new approach for the School District seriousness from the top.
Hitching a Ride
Candor has not been part of the job description in recent years in this School District, which, educators say, has ridden along on its reputation.
Teaching and administrative deadwood is an acidic test for every new superintendent.
Cleansing and upgrading the staff of the District involves separate questions.
What Will the Answers Be?
Does the new Super have the will to cashier them?
Once she decides to act, will she gain the School Board and the communal backing necessary?
Or will the Board and a core of activist parents fall back into their protectionist, old-boys-network mode?
Anatomy of a Will
Ones will is an immensely crucial, seldom-discussed character asset because it feels so amorphous.
Will hardly abounds in public school circles.
But it appears to thrive in Ms. Cote.
Aint No Ventriloquist Here
Unlike the previous regime, the Myrna Cote Show is not Charlie McCarthy sitting on Edgar Bergens lap waiting for Bergen to speak so he knows when to budge his lips.
I would not say that Ms. Cotes predecessor arose in the morning at an hour suggested by the School Board, but at least within minutes of the preferred time.
80 Percent Fewer Supers
Instead of 5 Supers, we are down to 1 who means business, who has a sense of humor, and who is equally comfortable across the desk or dealing with crowds.
She is friendly. Just right. Not too congenial, not too frosty.
When leaving her office, you dont nudge your spouse and ask whether she is in charge or she is here to play out her working days as a 99-Cent Store Buck Private.
Dozens of signs last Thursday night augured new times for parents and all of the professional players in the School District.
Germination of an Idea
No genius in the District Office on Irving Place plucked the notion for last Thursdays unusually well attended meeting out of his ear.
This was Ms. Cotes response to the largest batch of emails she has received.
She dwelled on the concept that the idea came from school families. They set the agenda, and she was standing before them to candidly answer their questions.
New Participants?
She asked for written suggestions regarding future meetings.
The purpose is to begin a dialogue between the District Office and you, Ms. Cote said.
Watching her from the front row, it seemed to me Alex G. Bell must have just invented the telephone.
Must be a new police: Listening and responding.
Since before the turn of the century, there has been a lot of static on the line for callers to the District Office by email or telephone, parents have complained.
Super Listens, Too
Email is the new, efficient, modern way for parents to complain or inquire, replacing the old method of trying to gain face time with a busy Super or a creative Super who can crouch behind a door.
Ms. Cote, New York-born, Long Beach-bred, struck me as more candid than the last 10 Supers, combined, I have interviewed.
She took less time to relate her resume than a 5-year-old would need. She introduced herself as Myrna Cote, not Dr. Myrna Cote, as insecure titled people do.
She presented herself as a partner, an equal with parents, albeit she may be a little more equal than her partners.
Why She Changed Jobs
She left the sprawling LAUSD after an abbreviated fling because she was hungry to return to governing a district of her own, not one the size of the sky on a starry night.
Anyone who studied the pillowy dynamics of the previous regime must have felt his heart leap a beat when came time to introduce special guests from the audience.
Leading with Gentle, Firm Hand
Glancing to her right before speaking, Ms. Cote showed why the District made the correct choice in hiring her when she said, revealingly:
Joining us this evening but not participating (and she chuckled) are 3 Board members sitting in the front. I dont know if they are here to see you or to watch me in action.
