Our readers may recall that in the wake of Santa Ana Unified School District Superintendent Al Mijares’ abrupt departure, a superintendent search has been ongoing. My sources are telling me that the search has been, thus far, very limited in scope. That seems insane given that SAUSD is the fifth largest school district in the state.
Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, perhaps the most prominent Mijares supporter, recently ripped the district by saying, at a forum, that it is the worst in the state. SAUSD board member Sal Tinajero, who is running against a Pulido puppet, countered by saying that there has been a lot of progress – that test scores in fact have doubled in the last few years. The truth lies somewhere in between their statements. Clearly we need to continue to improve – and we need a superintendent who has experience with turning around troubled districts. I always felt that Mijares was over his head. We cannot go through that again.
It is obviously very important to our community that the search be widened in scope. There also needs to be significant outreach to the community regarding the search. It has been reported that 20 to 24 people have called and expressed an interest in the superintendent position. The majority are from California with a few from the southwest and midwest.
The Los Angeles Unified School District just hired a new superintendent who has no experience at all in education. I hope that doesn’t happen here in Santa Ana. This job is too important to hand off to anyone who has no experience in public education.
My sources also tell me that the interim SAUSD superintendent, Jane Russo is very agreeable these days and perhaps public pressure could result in more open search and ultimately a community wide meeting to meet the candidates. You can contact her online at this link.
All of my children are enrolled in SAUSD schools, except my three-year-old who is in a private preschool. This is of great importance to me. Please take the time to contact Russo and ask her to widen the search and to keep us informed. We are running out of time – SAUSD documents I have seen indicate that the semi-finalists are to be interviewed between now and November. Let’s make sure that the semi-finalists are worth interviewing.
On a related note, if Tinajero wins in November, and leaves the SAUSD school board for the city council, there will be another opening on the board. I am hearing that Roman Reyna, Armando De La Libertad, and Sergio Verino are on the short list to replace Tinajero. I believe that we need to replace Tinajero with a candidate who has extensive education and experience. It would not hurt to select someone who has children enrolled in the district. My preference would be to go with De La Libertad over Reyna and Verino. I don’t believe that the latter options are sufficiently qualified. De La Libertad is a college graduate, and his wife used to work for the district.
My preference would be for an appointment to fill the Tinajero spot on the board. I don’t think holding a special election is a cost-effective measure. It would be a huge expense. Right now we need to concentrate our resources on education – not politics. Hopefully the current members of the school board will be able to come to an agreement – but I am not going to hold my breath.
I don’t trust Rob Richardson, as he is a Pulido acolyte and as such will probably have an agenda driven by the same mayor who stuck with Mijares for so long and who found it reasonable to close our libraries and cancel the bookmobile service. Rosie Avila seems to be fixated on social issues, including abortion, which is alarming given that the district has so many other more pressing problems. I don’t expect that Audrey Noji will still be on the school board come November 7. And I don’t think that John Palacio and incoming school board member Cecilia Aguinaga will be able to develop a consensus with Richardson and Avila. If there is a special election, will De La Libertad even be insterested – given the strenous primary he just went through in June? I doubt it. So we are looking at Reyna and Verino. Hopefully it won’t come to that.
Art
RINO Art said, “Rosie Avila seems to be fixated on social issues, including abortion, which is alarming given that the district has so many other more pressing problems.”
Right Art…killing those little babies is such a minor issue compared to test scores and teacher pay. Art…you are beginning to sound like a Democrat. Do you have anything you would like to tell us Art? Announce it here that you are really supporting the other team.
Rob Richardson was quoted as saying at the meeting where Al Mijares was re-appointed in 2005, “This is what the Mayor wants, the Mayor wants continuity.” It is ironic that the Mayor will attack Tinajero for being on the SAUSD, yet he is partly responsible for the problems they face by wanting to keep Mijares on the board. THe Mayor truly is a horrible Mayor.
VOTE GORDON, LEON, YANEZ and TINAJERO. TOUGH ENOUGH TO TURN SANTA ANA AROUND!
Great summary Art!
Rosie seems out to lunch on most board issues. It is clear she doesn
Posters 1 and 2,
There are no GOP candidates being discussed for the Tinajero seat – should I make some up?
As for abortion – I am supporting Prop. 85 – but let’s be honest about this – we have more important issues facing our school children than this. It is time to focus on the important issues – we have wasted enough time on red herrings.
Art,
Thanks for shining a much needed light on this topic. The search for a superintendent is the single most important task of a school board. Unfortunately, under the leadership of its current president there’s a lack of transparency and the appearance to rush the process.
A quick check of the district’s website yields not one posting regarding the search for a superintendent. The district and school board president’s arrogant tactics to bypass the community it serves, confirms that the culture of cronyism continues to thrive at SAUSD.
A quick Goggle search resulted in discovering the Boston Public School’s (BPS) website for their superintendent search. WOW! It’s all there. The credentials of the search firm they retained; the timeline for the search; the brochure; press releases; and the announcment of conducting three open community meetings. There’s even a summary of the community meetings for all to read. That’s inclusive. That’s a transparent process.
The district’s decision to select those they wanted interviewed stinks. The board president wants us to believe its a transparent search, but it is not.
Public schools are central to our economy and quality of life and to the future of our city. As former Mayor Richard Riordan aptly noted in 1997. “The new superintendent must also have the backing of our entire community, for we are all stakeholders in the education of our children.”
Ms. Russo … All stakeholders should have the opportunity to participate, therefore we respectfully request open community meetings. We also want all information germane to the search of the superintendent to be posted on the website. The public deserves to know the names of the individuals and organizations that have been interviewed and who made the decision to make those selections. We’d like to know the name of the search firm, their qualifications and past history of placing superintendents.
The holidays are fast approaching and everyone’s time is stretched. A good time to conduct open community meetings would be mid-January.
It’s regrettable that the community factor was ignored from the start. Let’s get off to a roaring good start and cast an open invitation to all. And stay clear of the holiday season.
We also need to discuss the advisory committee. A committee of 11 is reasonable for the size of the district.
I recommend that Art Pedroza be appointed to the seach advisory committee. I bet most residents hadn’t a clue that there was an advisory committee component. There is.
Look carefully at BPS’s photo of the advisory committee. I do not want an all male committee like the Bond Oversight Committee. We need a diversity of men and women.
check out:
http://boston.k12.ma.us/suptSearch/
BPS is tuned into their community.
Art…how ’bout Oscar Garza to replace Sal? I really don’t want Sal as a councilman, in my opinion he has done nothing for SAUSD, but if his name recognition gets him elected, Oscar might be interested. He served on the Measure C Oversight Committee, works for the County (he knows and understands government)and is currently a member of the city’s Library Board.
Speaking of the Measure C Oversight Committee — how many annual reports has the committee presented to the board since 1999? Answer: In 7 years, there have been three.
Poster #7,
Garza is a great guy – we serve together on the 69th AD Caucus of the OC GOP Central Committee. However, I am not hearing his name being bandied about for the Tinajero seat. I would love to see him get added to the short list – and perhaps you will bring that about by bringing him up. Thank you!
“I don’t trust Rob Richardson, as he is a Pulido acolyte…
Rosie Avila seems to be fixated on social issues…
I don’t expect that Audrey Noji will still be on the school board.”
Yes! I finally get to agree with you again, Art.
Armando would be a terrific choice to fill the possible school board vacancy. We’ve had enough folks like Nativo Lopez and Rosie Avila who use the school board for their psychotic political agendas…
We need someone on the board who actually cares about local education, and I have a feeling that Armando would actually focus on improving local education if he got on the board.
Here’s for hoping that SAUSD puts principle above politics!
“works for the County”
Do you mean like Carlos “never at work” Bustamante who bilks the taxpayer daily pretending to work while being nothing more than Miguel Pulido’s lapdog? WOOF!
The following comment is the reason we need a more transparent superintendent search process.
I am tired of the excused based culture of SAUSD. Cramming over 3,000 students into a facility built for 2,500 is not acceptable.
The students, teachers and staff at Valley should not be subjected to the district’s lack of oversight. Noji’s zeal to capture ADA money, at the expense of providing a quality education, is not the voice of reason and is devoid of integrity.
Mike Garcia should be added to any list of consideration.
***** Read and take heed ******
Anonymous Says:
10/15/2006 9:12 PM
Events at Valley/Godinez have now taken a pathological turn. The atrocious Tony Espinosa, principal of Valley/Godinez, is so addicted to ADA that he is willing to go to any extreme to bring in state money. ADA pays the school about $25.00 per day per student attending Valley/Godinez. With that in mind, Espinosa has enrolled 3100 students in a school built for no more than 2500 students. Because of the joint use agreement with the City of Santa Ana, which owns the property Valley/ Godinez is built upon, SAUSD is not allowed to bring in bungalows to alleviate the overcrowding. So how does the atrocious Espinosa solve the problem his greed for state funds has created at Valley/Godinez?
Espinosa organized a “leadership team” consisting of himself, Sylvia Molina, the AP for Curriculum, and a teacher loyalist who was passed off as the department chairperson for Special Education. Espinosa then recruited Barbara Glaeser, the Department Chair of Special Education at California State University Fullerton. Espinosa and Molina were introduced to Glaeser by the head of Special Education for SAUSD, Richard Erhard. Espinosa and Molina went to Glaeser because they were told that Glaeser was deeply interested in fully including Special Education students in “regular” classroom settings. Glaeser won her Ph.D. at the University of Kansas where full inclusion research was pioneered.
Last spring Espinosa and his leadership team began meeting with Glaeser in order to plan for fully including special education students into regular classrooms. What Glaeser did not know was Espinosa and Molina and their teacher shill were ignoring all her recommendations because their actual purpose was to take advantage of Glaeser for the purpose of selling overcrowded conditions to the district and to the staff at Valley/Godinez. (The two actual Special Education Co Department chairs were cut out out of the process entirely unbeknownst to Barbera Glaeser.)
With more then 3000 student at Valley/Godinez, there was not enough classroom space to give each teacher a classroom so the special education teachers were forced to team up with regular education teachers in the same classroom space. The district then forced the special education teachers to rewrite their IEP’s to make the IEP’s legally compliant with the law. Meanwhile, the special education students are being marginalized because they are not getting the full spectrum of services required by state and federal law. The 351 special education students are not being provided with FAPE (free appropriate public education) because the atrocious Tony Espinosa would rather harvest huge sums of state ADA money then educate the students in his care.
Well Art,
For promoting a Democrat and former Lorretta Sanchez staffer for school board you will be held accountalble by all Republicans in Santa Ana. For saying that unborn babies are nothing but Red Herrings, you will be judged by God. You are losing it Art. One day you are Mr. Conservative, the next you are name calling your fellow Republicans for not being conservative. Then when you think someone might make you an honerary Latino this or that (you loved wearing the big cheesy “I’m Ed Royce’s Latino” badge didn’t you?) you start sucking up to people who can give you some status and meaning to your life. You should be ashamed of yourself Art.
SAUSD is the largest school district in the county. Why aren’t the Register and Times covering this story?
I took the advice of an earlier blogger and checked out the district’s website. There is not one shred of information on the district’s website regarding the search for a superintendent.
I’d like the opportunity to meet with the search committee and offer comments on what my expectations are of the new super.
Art, thanks for bringing this matter out into the open.
An aside. The SAUSD website was designed NOT to inform the community it serves.
9:59,
No – you should be. Our school district is in dire straits and we need to make the education of our children the top priority – not wedge issues.
I never, by the way, was affiliated with Mr. Royce’s office in any way. I am not sure what you are alluding to. I was in charge of Hispanic Outreach for the OC GOP, back in 1996, and later served as an ambassador for State Senator Rob Hurtt’s office. Don’t get me wrong – I am an admirer of Congressman Royce – but I have had no affiliation with him whatsoever, except in your imagination.
It’s time to put our kids ahead of our preoccupations. I will judge all school board candidates according to their education, experience and priorities. If they happen to be Republicans, great. Someone mentioned Oscar Garza. He would be an excellent candidate. Perhaps you know of others? I doubt it. Indeed I doubt you live in the district – and I wonder if your children are enrolled in our schools…
Art said: “I will judge all school board candidates according to their education, experience and priorities.”
That’s what Tim Whitacre is doing with his S.A. council picks. I think you owe Tim a heartfelt apology Mr. Pedroza!
9:59 AM (#12) Not nice!
Education should be something we all rally around (left, right and center). If we could sustain a focus on improving education for our young, this will make a brighter future for all.
There has been so much insight shed on this blog regarding the ills of SAUSD. It is clear there are many who care. Please do not spoil collective efforts to improve education and hold our elected officials accountable.
Does Armando have children Art? You said they need to have kids to be on the school board. What about your man Tom Gordon for school board if he does not win the Mayors job? How about Evangeline Gawronski for school board? She’s a teacher.
Thanks for reminding me Art, it was for Rob Hurtt, not Royce. So how did that Hispanic Outreach work out for the GOP? Did you recruit a lot of GOP Latino leaders Art back in 1998? Who/where are all those Latino Republicans you recruited now Art? What’s happened to your old boss Robb Hurtt? You hear or see from him much in Republican circles anymore.
Evangeline’s claim to fame is PIP — i.e., stripping property owners of their rights to sell their real estate without government intervention (an ordinance that would surely fail any legal challenge). In any event, Evangeline is no visionary and would probably come up with “solutions” that result in more legal problems for the SAUSD. Evangeline is more concerned with code enforcement than in improving our schools and quality of education. No to Evangline for SAUSD.
I think lots of dumb gringos will vote for Evangeline because she is well…white.
Poster #20 your post is just plain stupid. It’s too early to tell who will get appointed to Tinajero’s school board seat, that is, if he wins his council race. I’m sure there will be a lot of hats thrown in the ring for that appointment. Why is an assumption being made that a Democrat will fill this seat?
Rome is burning and you’re all fiddling with yourselves about who will replace Tinajero. Move on.
The school board is proceeding with the task of appointing a superintendent and they are making no effort to outreach to the community regarding this very important job.
Make our elected officials accountable.
The community deserves to meet the finalists and ask questions.
I read in a prior post that SAUSD students don’t have books to take home to use for homework.I asked one of the school board members if this is true.The response was yes. In my view this issue alone should be the basis to put the screws to the decision makers that let this happen.It is incredible that this basic and most important tool for the success of the students is not available,not to mention lack of teachers ,lack of counselors and lack of class rooms-all basic for proper conditions for learning.Without homework how can you expect students to study in order to perform and compete in classroom tests,for SAT’s and for Federal and State exit exams?How can you then critisize the community and the students totally for beign underachievers?No other community would tolerate these conditions except others that are 95% mostly second generation Hispanic students and where parents are unable to cause change.Informed parents place their children in other cities or private schools.I am amazed scores are going up in spite of this tremendous conscious error.An error this large can not be an accident.If scores are going up in spite, consider the great potential these students posses.Some state a candidate for school board needs a degree,experience,children etc… how about common sense and accountability?
Dr. Lomeli –
It’s important that you know not all schools are overcrowded, lack textbooks or have a shortage of counselors. SAUSD has a three-tiered public school system: 1.) neighorhood 2.) fundamental and 3) charter. The schools that experience the worst of academic conditions are the neighborhood schools.
Take a look at Segerstrom. The principal at Segerstrom strongly controls who is admitted to her school. Yes, the district paints a picture that it is an open enrollment school, but it is not. The district turns a blind eye because they are relying on Segerstrom to bring up the district’s test scores. On the other hand, Valley, the worst high school in the county, lacks textbooks, has 18 permanent subs, currently has over 3,000 students crammed in a brand new $98 million facility,m built for 2,500 students, and has mainstreamed its 300+ special ed students into the regular classroom. Comingling the classrooms is a gross disservice to the special ed students and the regular students. Not to mention, it is illegal.
The academic discrimination and inequities that exists in our SAUSD public schools is disgraceful!
Yet, district administrators get away with it, because they can.
They are not interested in empowering parents, they do their best to keep them at an arm’s length.
Noji and Richardson are only interested in keeping the mayor “content.” They both must be ousted! We need a superintendent that is not from the SAUSD pool. The stakeholders in our community – parents, students, businessmen, clergy and concerned residents should be involved in the process of selecting the next superintendent. At minimum, the district should communicate with the residents by posting all information germane to the selection process on the school district’s official website.
The stench of district administrator’s arrogance is stiffling and must end. A good housecleaning is in order and we need a superintendent that’s equipped to take action and crack the cronyism that thrives in the school district.
Noji’s been parked too long in the school board stall. She does not deserve the voter’s trust to extend her tenure to 20 years!
Since Santa Ana residents are so hot on mayoral term limits, what about SAUSD school board term limits? And while we’re at it,
why not divide SAUSD into five areas and elect one trustee from each area? Let’s bring accountability back to our neighborhoods.
Post #24. Are the district administrators you refer to The School Board?Who is responsible for the academic discrimination and inadequicies? The Board or the Superintendent?The Neglect of Valley and attention to Segerstrom to compensate for Valley is like a academic ponzie scheme.It appears very sinister – conscious neglect of providing tools for academic success of a community and attempt to compensate resulting low test scores with the attention to fundemental and Charter Schools.Why the neglect?Why do this and produce challenged students?This is social suicide.Thank you for providing this information .I believed this neglect was generic.You provide A worse scenario.The cure is to shed light on the responsible desicion makers.The parents,present and past students need to know how irrelevant they are considered to be.The only thing public servants understand is political (votes) pressure.Like a corporation the boss should be illiminated for mismanagementThis imformation has to be taken to the affected community,anybody else won’t care much.I believe that is why you wrote administrators do it because they can.Teachers and Principals that see this first hand should be working with community leaders and parents on applying political pressure.I will do what I can.Contact me at my office if you like.
Anonymous Says:
10/17/2006 9:27 PM
There is another element to the raping of the special education program at Valley/Godinez. Espinosa has lead the school into a second year of PI 5 (the State is just too cowardly to slam the district and declare Valley is a PI 6 school). Espinosa’s special education plan was supposed to show the State that Valley/Godinez was attempting to mend it’s ways. The problem was Espinosa is devoid of imagination and could not initiate, expand, develop, shepherd, and follow through with the special education “reform” he forced upon all the teachers at Valley/Godinez. At some later date his fraud will come to the attention of the responsible authorities and Valley/Godinez will find itself exactly where it stood 5 years ago: The failing flagship of a failing district led by a failing downtown administration which itself is still being led by the consummate failure Audrey Nogi.