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L.A. Unified Superintendent John Deasy Here To Stay Despite Controversy

Brianna Sacks |
October 30, 2013 | 9:07 a.m. PDT

(Superintendent John Deasy and Board president Richard Vladovic/Brianna Sacks, Neon Tommy)
(Superintendent John Deasy and Board president Richard Vladovic/Brianna Sacks, Neon Tommy)
Ending days of tense rumors that he would resign, L.A. Unified Superintendent John Deasy will remain at the helm of the nation’s second largest school district until 2016, the board announced Tuesday afternoon.

After an impassioned rally led by scores of parents, community activists and educators, and a marathon five-hour deliberation behind closed doors, the board gave Deasy a satisfactory performance evaluation and extended his contract.

Maria Alcala, a parent at 24th Street Elementary thanked him, in Spanish, for showing up at a park in the rain to hear their concerns; Deasy supported their efforts this year to transform their low-performing campus with a hybrid district/charter school arrangement under the parent trigger law.

And while the hundreds of supporters gathered outside the district headquarters said Deasy was one of the first superintendents to truly reach out to English learners and lower-income families, the superintendent also has his critics. 

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“It is unbelievable that the Board of Education has given John Deasy a ‘satisfactory’ evaluation despite a clear message from LA’s teachers and health and human services professionals that Deasy’s leadership is anything but satisfactory," said Warren Fletcher, president of the union United Teachers Los Angeles.

After the board announced Deasy would remain, a discontented UTLA released a statement chastisting the board's decision:

  "What exactly the Superintendent and the Board learned today is unclear. What is clear is that they are not listening to the professionals in the classroom."

Deasy has been battling a pro-union school board since the new president Richard Vladovic was elected in July. Some board members and the union challenged his budget priorities, teacher evaluation system, classroom breakfast program and iPad initiative.

Before that, the brash and often stubborn leader worked with a clearly pro-reform, anti-union board that easily passed his policies. 

Deasy thanked the board Tuesday for a "good and robust evaluation" and "excellent and honest conversation so we can continue to lift youth out of poverty."

Maria Brenes of InnerCity Struggle, an East L.A. community organization, said Deasy made a point to reach out to parents previously ignored by district officials.

(Deasy supporters/Brianna Sacks, Neon Tommy)
(Deasy supporters/Brianna Sacks, Neon Tommy)
Esmeralda Moreno, a mother of four children in different L.A. Unified schools, said experienced this first hand.

“Before when we tried to get in touch with the superintendent he would never return parents’ calls and didn't care about us," said Moreno. "With Deasy, he met us in a hotel lobby and heard us out and the next week set up a meeting in the office.” 

Moreno also said that her children's' low-performing school improved under Deasy's stewardship

"My children were so low in reading levels and English comprehension," said Moreno. "Now I have faith they are on their way to go to college."

Ryan Smith, director of Education programs at United Way of Greater Los Angeles, said losing Deasy would be "a disaster" to a school system that is just lifting itself up from years of disastrous budget cuts. 

United Way President Elise Buik noted that the board realized what was at stake if they fired the Superintendent and their decision to work through different ideologies could be a "new new way forward."

Rene Rodman, another L.A. Unified mother, said L.A Unified's greatest problem was "churning and burning through superintendents." She complained that the average superintendent stayed on the job for less time than a middle school student.

“We really feel like we are just at the start of this and we need to give Deasy time to carry this out,” said Rodman. “But there has been too much in-fighting and politics it’s no longer about the children.”

(Listen to a live audio report from the meeting on Annenberg Radio News)





Deasy is known as a school reformer. He has pushes for more charter schools, test-score based teacher evaluations, abandoning No Child Left Behind and working with more education and community groups. 

Under his reign, test scores, attendance and graduation rates have soared, fewer students have been suspended and more highschoolers are signing up for college-level classes.

But he also faces deep-seated problems. Teacher morale is far too low, the district's new billion-dollar iPad program is flailing and he has been continuously criticized for ignoring teachers.

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Fletchers said more than half of the union’s 35,000 members gave the superintendent a near-failing grade of "no-confidence" in a survey released this past April.

“One of the two red flags was stewardship of district budget. Teachers feel that resource decisions that are being made right now don’t match the needs of school sites and kids,” said Fletcher.

Lisa Karahalios, a seventh-grade history teacher at Miliken Middle School in Sherman Oaks, said Deasy is not the right person "for the job," since he has barely any experience in the classroom.

"The morale is the worst I have ever seen it and he doesn't respect the teachers and has been adding staff to the bureaucracy while the teachers, nurses and custodians have been cut to the bare minimum and we have a skeleton crew at the schools," said Karaholios. "And this iPad fiasco is really the last straw for a lot of us."

Despite the drama and controversy, Deasy is here to stay,for now, and parents hope the politicking and bickering will cease and the board will let the superintendent do what he was hired to do—reform a floundering school system.

Reach Editor-in-Chief Brianna Sacks here



 

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