Here’s the big ask: Can we all move beyond the past, and start working with the new El Tejon Unified School District superintendent, financial manager and principals with an open mind?
Families and businesses on the mountain recall several episodes before of stepping forward, pitching in to help, then finding our best efforts and best offers wasted by flawed administrators.
Last week, at the workshop on balancing the ETUSD budget, one generous parent told of taking a grant opportunity that was ripe for the picking to a former high school principal, who just let it fall between the cracks. That happened countless times to others as well. A university professor who put together a committee of 10 professors to teach a revolving ‘college preparedness’ course for mountain youth met the same fate, two years in a row.
Events like those are bitter memories. But they are in the past. Now at the district, new attitudes—and new faces—prevail.
The United Way Community Reading Program has been endorsed by the school district. The Mountain Enterprise led that effort as an experiment to test the new spirit. It is now in its second year of success. Volunteers are now welcomed into second grade classrooms by Principal Keri St. Jeor at Frazier Park School.
Over at Frazier Mountain High School, Principal Sara Haflich has brought energy, openness and enthusiasm into reshaping the FMHS culture for the better. The Saturday Schools last year were a roaring success. At the district office, Business Manager Sarah Morris untangled a morass of neglect, to find the $1 million Fund 20 and other money owed to the district.
That was used to avoid layoffs in the 2014-15 school year, and fixed an ailing reserve fund. She is putting things in order, under the leadership of Superintendent Rod Wallace.
There is now a genuine call to the community to come together to figure out how to cross yet another bridge to help revive the optimism and financial strength of this district.
The greatest challenge for mountain residents is to forgive the past and move forward. If we can, it will benefit every sector of life—economic and cultural—on the mountain.
Now two more workshops need you: Thursday, Jan. 29 and Thursday, Feb.5, both 6-8 p.m. See the story in this week’s edition for details. We’ll see you there. —P. Hedlund
Location: Continuation school (light colored building at the northwest corner of the Frazier Mountain High School parking lot, on Falcon Way, off of Peace Valley Road—turn right at eastern corner of Flying J and Frazier Mountain Park Road to Peace Valley Road, then right again to follow Falcon Way up to the high school parking lot. Look to your left to see the Continuation School building).
This is part of the January 23, 2015 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you.
