Letter responding to innovations at Centinela Valley

The on-going political machinations at every level in Centinela Valley is both sad and distracting.

The press made a point of publishing to the widespread community that the principal at Leuzinger High School received a no-confidence vote of 80% from the teachers.
Since when did the ongoing conflicts between teachers and administrators dominate so much time, space, and energy, that everyone has lost sight of the real focus-- student learning.

Public teachers' unions are to blame, in part.

Unions represent unions, pure and simple. They have made it a point to bad-mouth school boards and leadership ongoing. At what point did individual educators decide that the best way to foster reform in a school was to instigate ongoing conflict?

Throughout the previous school year, I listened with some dismay how students were so informed on the political wranglings shaking up Centinela Valley. Teachers were telling their students what School Board members were "plotting", how the involuntary transfer of teachers from celebrated havens with respected and friendly colleagues was surreptitiously disrupted. Teachers crow that the transfers were retaliatory. The District leadership argues that the reforms were necessary, or schools would be converted to charters or shut down entirely.

At the end of these political wranglings, the obviated questions becomes rather obvious: what has all this hassle back and forth accomplished in the realm of preparing young people to make sense of themselves and their place in this world?

Instead of arguing about whether buildings should be torn down and replaced, or whether teachers like or dislike their leadership, why doesn’t the community start asking the most pertinent question to Centinela Schools and staff: What exactly are we all doing here? Who are we here for the kids, or the adults?