Who will run for the Santa Ana School Board in November?

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• It has been a long time since I have written on this blog. It looks great. Good job Art and the rest of the team. As a former Orange Juice blogger I am proud of the accomplishments this site has done with its changes. Congrats.

  On the topic of this thread. I think some of the comments posted here are very valid, however, always consider the problem may not very will be whether the school board members are parents or not. The fact, Noji, and other trustees send their children to schools elsewhere is only an example of the problems which exist in the district. The problem is not whether they are making a political choice about their children. They are simply being smart parents.

  With that said, the trustees should be people who have a passion to change, what we now know, is a fractured education system. I dont believe it necessarily starts at the School Board level. Lets look at the teachers and what they get.

  When I taught at Santa Ana High School, with or without resources we taught because we believed in students, and we felt they could succeed. I went to Santa Ana High School recently as was dissapointed with what I saw. Teachers were reading the newspaper. Students were watching the "Twilight" movies.

  Change the system of teachers, get rid of those who simply do not teach effectively, and remove those trustees who are simply only interested in progression their political career. I believe an entire revamp is in order, but it starts in the philosophy of education in Santa Ana. Cecilia, Gloria, and others may not be those we are looking for. We need new representation with a new light.

  Thank you for reading

  Luis Rodriguez

  • Luis,

    Thanks for the kind words my friend! I think you are right. Moreover, it is tragic that young teachers always get laid off while some of these burned out teachers keep hanging on, even though they are past caring.

    There are many good teachers too, including veterans, but the burn-outs need to go.

    I do hope that better candidates will emerge. One of the reasons we keep these blogs going is to make sure folks have the info they need, and to inspire the bravest amongst us to jump into the ring...

• Admin,
  I have spent 25+ years in Law Enforcement, including working in the Gang Unit, and would argue the point about the gang shootings being drug related. While some gang related shootings may be drug related, most are not, unlike in Los Angeles where a great many ARE drug related gang wars.

  The thing that I had to learn when I went into the Gang Unit, is that the gangsters LIKE being in gangs! Poverty is an excuse and a cop-out. I will show you thousands of poor Hispanic, Asian and White kids who don't bang. Their parents/parent gives them certain guidelines that control their behaivior, thus keeping them out of trouble. I would hate to tell you how many times I have spoken to parents who have no idea who their kids friends are, or where they live. They have never met the friends' parents, have no phone number for the parents, and never actually check to see if little Johnny or Suzy is really at the friends' home for a function. The excuse is always the same "My son/daughter would never lie to me". Uh... guess again.

  ALL kids lie to their parents, even if it's a little white lie, because the common sense part of a kid's brain has not developed yet.

  • Jose,

    You are right. A teacher I know told me a story recently about a fifteen your old student of hers who had been caught selling drugs. He said he was trying to clean up his act, but he was still selling drugs. Here is the kicker - his parents knew but chose to ignore it as he was giving them a lot of money. Well, he got shot and killed. And the hospital wouldn't pay for it as the kid was in a gang and sold drugs. Now the parents are in a real hole, paying for the ER and paying for the funeral. Was it worth it? No. They found out the hard way.

    This is why I keep going back to what really makes sense - we need to stop the drug war and take the profit out of it. We need to decriminalize drugs, as much of Europe has. There is a measure on the ballot in November to legalize and tax the sale of cannabis. That is a start.

• Admin,
  Not sure I would go to those lengths to de-crminalize... To add to your story about the 15 y/o, I just had the same thing on Friday night. Two 15 year old boys from SA, in my city riding a bike through an industrial area of the city at 11:00 pm. One drunk and carrying a meth pipe in his pocket, the other just hanging with the wrong guy. They were going into a gang neighborhood to "visit my girlfriend". The drunk kid had a juvenile warrant for his arrest, for cutting off his ankle bracelet and thus violating his probation. This was his FIFTH ARREST as a 15 y/o, each one getting worse than the one before it. Family was pretty upset at the whole thing, but I think they were ready to wash thier hands of him.

• Noji needs to go. She helped set up a program that took teachers out of the classroom. All of the former teachers who taught full time as ELD department heads were taken out of the classroom to administrate state testing. That is all they did. We see the low test results yet we continue to pay these "teachers" or should I say new administrates full pay for doing what other teachers do for little or no extra money. The overcrowding due to the loss of the number of teachers does not help our students or our district.

• Reason there is no work. The classes necessary to guide our children to creation of businesses and work skills were destroyed by who? My business is in its 37th year by using skills I learned at Willard Jr. High and Santa Ana High School. Shop classes such as wood shop, drafting, welding, machine shop, auto shop. Is this the correct venue to complain about the geniuses that are in the business of helping our children fail?