L.A. Mayor Garcetti may hire former SAUSD Superintendent to advise him

As Mayor Eric Garcetti considers his top education appointment, one name is generating more buzz than any other — Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, according to the LA School Report.

She quit her job as Superintendent of the Santa Ana Unified School District after a huge scandal broke out – at Spurgeon Intermediate, where 12 year old kids were openly smoking pot, tagging and disrupting their classrooms, as we reported a few months ago.

The LA School Report also disclosed that “Melendez was a classmate of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy‘s at Eli Broad’s Superintendent’s Academy; they both graduated in 2006. The two were photographed together in Sacramento in April, discussing Jerry Brown’s local control funding formula, apparently just hours before she retired.”

Before taking the job at Santa Ana, Melendez’s previous jobs included bilingual classroom teacher in Montebello, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, and Superintendent at Pomona Unified. As the Pasadena Star-News noted, she has connections not just to Broad, but also to former LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines.

So Melendez de Santa Ana messed up our school district and now she is apparently going to land another six-figure job in education, in Los Angeles, where schools are even more messed up.

How do these people keep getting jobs in education?

Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.
Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

View Comments

  • Dear Editor,

    What kind of question is that at the end of your report? You know the answer to your question. It's called the "old boys network." Unfortunately, the Mayor of LA has no clue and found Thelma to be a cheap price to pay. What advice is she going to give to the Mayor? How to fill pot holes on school playgrounds! She announces that she will retire but wait, she's thinking that she can go to a BS job, give advice from her home while watching both her pension and paycheck deposit into her checking account! This is a disgrace!

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