Let’s be clear first: Leandra Blades, the Jan. 6 insurrectionist and Culture-Warrior President of the Placentia-Yorba Linda USD, DID win re-election over worthy Marine reservist Misty Janssen – what she LOST was her extremist MAJORITY, as Tricia Quintero walloped MAGA vlogger Ryan James Miller. So she’ll be in the minority now.

Yes, just as in Temecula and Orange earlier this year, the “Normal People” took back their school board. But Leandra has PLANS for the district, for her final month in power – plans to do the most damage she can before the new moderate majority takes over in January. Plans for a big “F. You” to the parents and voters of Placentia and Yorba Linda who have sidelined her.

And that begins at tonight’s Board meeting – Tuesday Nov, 19, 6pm, 1301 E. Orangethorpe, Placentia. Let’s start with what Leandra and her allies have planned for tonight, before we give a brief recap of the damage this majority has done to the district over the past few years.

Hubris of the Lame Duck

From least to most alarming: There had been only one meeting scheduled, in December, for the outgoing board – Dec. 17, installation of the new majority. Seeing her majority gone, Leandra has suddenly scheduled TWO new meetings, December 3 and 10 – who knows what foolishness she’ll try to shoehorn in those final weeks, but let’s worry about tonight for now.

Tonight, tonight… expecting a lot of public comments, Leandra’s board majority has suddenly moved them to the end of the meeting. And added new rules to where they can be cut off if they go too long. BROWN ACT VIOLATION – our cherished state law provides that a body must hear from the public BEFORE they vote on matters, not AFTER.

But here’s their most brazen move: fearing that the newly elected majority could replace their loyal Superintendent Alex Cherniss (and three of his deputies), the Leandra majority is plotting to singlehandedly change their employment contracts, at the last minute, so that they can only be removed by a 4-1 vote. Going up until the end of 2026! (Which is when Leandra apparently hopes the voting public will SEE THE LIGHT and give her back her majority, which would entail re-electing her ally Todd Frazier AND replacing popular watchdog Carrie Buck.)

Well, first of all, is this legal, and second of all, can’t the new majority just change that on their own? And IS Cherniss really in danger of being replaced? Before we look at that, let’s make the observation that Leandra’s respect for democracy and the popular will remains the same as when she showed up at Washington DC on January 6, 2021 to try and help overturn the election of Joe Biden! And now…

Who’s this Alex Cherniss?

First, NOBODY is talking (yet) about replacing Cherniss or anyone else – that’s all this district needs is MORE chaos! What the minority watchdogs (Anderson & Buck) HAVE been planning is a FORENSIC AUDIT, on the two biggest PET PROJECTS of Cherniss and the Blades majority – that’s the Universal Sports Institute (USI) and the OC School of Computer Sciences (OCSCS.)

Cherniss was hired about 18 months ago, after a somewhat hasty search that ignored some red flags in his record, after the previous Superintendent Elsasser got sick of the Board’s dysfunction and headed back to Claremont (part of a mass exodus to be mentioned later.) As the Board had somewhat gotten its Cultural War theatrics out of its system already, they now focused with Cherniss on implementing these two pet projects, OCSCS & USI, charter school projects at what was formerly Bernardo Yorba School, that bleed millions from what other schools in the district need, and are presented unconvincingly as ways to boost the district’s declining enrollment.

And Cherniss, in his devotion to these two projects, has pursued them with haste, incompetence, and reckless disregard for truth and transparency – some even say corruption. Anderson and Buck have been asking a lot of uncomfortable questions, they will call for a forensic audit, and then we’ll see. The YouTube channel “PYLUSD for Truth” has several helpful videos on the topic(s) such as this one:

And now Leandra wants to ensure that, if this forensic audit shows anything bad, bad enough for the new majority to want to replace Dr. Cherniss, THEY CAN’T DO IT. Not unless she or her ally Frazier agree. Now THAT is some shady shit, no?

Lacerated by Blades since 2020

Like I said, the BS “Cultural War” issues generally associated with these sorts of extremist Boards have been pretty much exhausted by PYLUSD since Leandra’s COVID-era ascendance. Load blown. And PYLUSD survived.

They did the Critical Race Theory Burlesque around 2022 when THAT was the craze. As always this was pointless if malevolent theater, as CRT doesn’t exist below college level, but it did get them the expected headlines and applause from put-upon white snowflake people. It DID have at least one ill effect in real life: Cal State Fullerton refused to send any more student teachers to the district, student teachers who until 2022 often became full-time teachers there.

Marilyn Anderson voted in favor of that 2022 CRT ban, and it’s said she regrets that now, but that’s why she was originally considered part of Leandra’s far-right majority. Marilyn Anderson is an interesting character! A conservative, she is actually a conservative. Meaning she cares about education, transparency, fiscal responsibility, the law. Which means she quickly became NOT a part of Leandra’s majority (and she just got re-elected over a Moms-For-Liberty candidate!)

Then when “Parental Notification” was all the rage, Leandra’s majority jumped on that bandwagon. But Temecula & Orange USD had just done Parental Notifications targeting the transgendered, and were already facing lawsuits from the state, so they passed a watered-down Parental Notification only mentioning notification if a “student was in danger.” It was completely unnecessary as it duplicated already-existing state law, it was pure theater so’s PYLUSD could say they DID PARENTAL NOTIFICATION, and for that reason Marilyn voted against it. Brave – her opponent tried using that vote against her this year… FACEPLANT.

All these Boards, when they are taken over by Culture War / Charter School-loving extremists, experience a MASS EXODUS OF ADMINISTRATORS – it’s like a primary symptom of these Board takeovers – and PYLUSD was no exception, losing 25 administrators in the past 8 months under Cherniss, losing five out of six high school principals, and (I wrote in my notes) ALL superintendents!?

Well, I’m going on too long, I’ll write again about the people’s taking back PYLUSD. For now, it’s time to get ready for tonight’s meeting – 6pm!

PS. The Register beat me to this…