L.A. Unified Leaders Don’t Make the Grade
By Steve Lopez
September 17, 2013, 8:19 p.m.
The nation’s second-largest public school district is dealing with a few disciplinary problems of late, but it’s not the students I’m talking about.
It’s the grown-ups.
Members of the L.A. Unified administration think new school board President Richard Vladovic is a big bully, and in fact Vladovic has been under internal review for possible verbally abusive behavior. Supt. John Deasy had reportedly threatened to take his ball and leave the playground if Vladovic got the top job on the board but then changed his mind when it happened.
Some school board members, meanwhile, would have you believe it’s Deasy who’s the bully, charging around full speed all the time and flipping out when he doesn’t get his way. Then last week, Deasy’s right-hand man, Deputy Supt. Jaime Aquino, had me reaching for a violin when he said he’d just left a tearful meeting and had no choice but to quit because he can’t handle the board’s interference and paralysis.
“My heart is completely broken,” Aquino told the Daily News.
His heart’s broken? Stand in line, pal.