Friends who live in the La Mesa / Spring Valley School District: Please consider voting for Rebecca McRae for LMSV 2018. I know Mrs. McRae as a passionate first grade teacher at Jackson’s school. She’s running as a parent of two kids in the district, her lack of name recognition and political experience speak to her simple desire to see improvements in the district. She’s not running to advance anything other than making the schools better and more welcoming to all.
Speaking purely from our own personal experience of having two kids go through their middle school, the changes she seeks are needed.
I’ll point to 2 things which I find problematic:
- Nepotism– Most exemplified by a person currently running who is the spouse of a district principal– but there are also other examples like married people working at the same schools– and the mayor of La Mesa is somehow employed at a district school. Yeah, that’s serious small town stuff that shouldn’t be happening in La Mesa. A lot of home cooking going on. The last thing the district needs is a principal’s husband on the board… surely, they would benefit from expanding perspectives a little bit at the top.
- Church folks basically run the school board – Obviously, I think it’s great when Christians get involved locally. I champion that. And I love it that there are so many Christians who are teachers. But there’s also a point of unhealthy meddling which, as I’ve personally seen, negatively impacts the education in the district. These are public schools and people serving on the board should be champions of public education for every student and family in the district, not attempting to advance a Christian agenda in the schools as we sometimes experienced. Several school board members and people running for the board are church staff members, again this doesn’t disqualify them, but members of their church are largely financing their campaigns to make sure church folks continue to run the board, which is far from the independence we should expect in public education. For example, when a seat needed to be filled a couple years back the republicans who run the board appointed a 25 year old church secretary and graduate of private Christian schools to a board seat despite her lack of qualifications and over the endorsements and recommendations of several other people who were highly qualified. The descending board member later wrote, “To place someone with no background or knowledge of public education in such an important and crucial role simply because they ‘fit’ an ideological direction is counter to the spirit of nonpartisan school boards and does not show respect for the civic expectation that board members will have life experiences and skills needed for the demands and gravitas of this role.”
I know this is an overtly political ask. But if you are a La Mesa / Spring Valley voter, please look into and consider Rebecca McRae. I think she’ll do a nice job to help right the ship and get the district headed in the right direction again.
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