At the April 8, LASD Board meeting, ex-LASD board President Sangeeth Peruri was one of 3 out of 40-50 public speakers to SUPPORT the proposed 10-year Agreement. It moves the Egan Community to a new complex on the 10th site 4 to 6 years from now.
But now he’s flip-flopped.
He began his 2 minutes long remarks by urging people who feel angry to “focus on helping change state laws that permit charters to discriminate against special needs and low-income students.”
[Lalahpolitio: This factoid alleging “intentional discrimination” is one of the key planks in the CTA propaganda efforts which are heating up again this spring in Sacramento. The CTA is lobbying hard for AB1505 and AB1506. These two bills essentially TERMINATE the expansion of the charter movement in California. ]
Here’s what Sangeeth Peruri said April 8, 2019 at the board meeting,
“There are pros and cons of any deal. Tonite we have heard about all of the negatives. But there are positives here as well. I’m going to spend my minute talking about some of the positives.
For the community, it ends a decade plus of lawsuits.
It’s an efficient use of taxpayer funds. It adds facilities in a dense and growing part of LASD.It adds new public space and gym facilities in Mountain View.
It will reduce traffic and add more open space at Blach.
For BCS it adds a permanent space and certainty for BCS families.
In exchange, BCS has agreed to an enrollment cap which benefits both LASD and BCS families
For LASD these are amazing new facilities for Egan.
My daughter is likely to be in one of the early classes at Egan, and I’m excited by the potential for amazing new facilities there.
This provides housing for our teachers. Our teachers are the soul of this district. This is one of the big highlights of this deal and one of the most exciting aspects of it.
All elementary school communities are maintained.
There is no disruption during building phase which would be quite hectic over the 5 or 6 years.
And this also makes room for universal pre-K and all the students that could come with housing growth in NEC.
I know this is a tough decision ahead of you”
The Sangeeth Peruri Switcheroo
But within the week, Sangeeth Peruri changed his mind about the desirability of the ‘Move Egan in Some Year in the Future Agreement.’ Here’s his Letter-to-the-Editor published in the Los Altos Town Crier. It was published in the Wednesday, April 17 edition, so he must have submitted it to the publishers and editors no later than the Friday to Monday before.
Lalahpolitico: How swiftly he changed his tune! Just one week! Hear today, gone tomorrow.
Sangeeth Peruri in this LTE advocates for more SHARING, when Trustees Johnson and Speiser have argued that getting rid of facility sharing was a key goal. Talk about a lack of collaboration!
Undercutting Jessica Speiser and Bryan Johnson
It seemed that as many of 4 of the 5 current board members at the board meeting of April 8, 2019, were ok with Jessica’s and Bryans’s Agreement. Those two were the negotiation team trying to avoid starting up the annual Prop 39 Facilities Request cycle of woe.
Only Trustee Ivanovic was the one definite hold out against the Agreement. He was belligerent, ‘let’s go to war’.
Peruri, even as an X-trustee, still has wide influence. He seems to have thrown his hand-picked board-mentee – the fair Jessica – under the bus. Not to mention even-tempered Bryan.
Lalahpolitco: Why? Why? I don’t know. Did Sangeeth Peruri get threats? Is he planning on running for higher office? Because of the CTA lobbying for AB1505 and AB 1506 in Sacramento right now, everyone in the ‘system’ is being subjected to a loyalty test?
Lahpolitico: Lookie Lookie
at Sang’s Silly Alternative
The main motivator for the Agreement was to STOP SHARING. Trustees Johnson and Speiser determined that managing the sharing of spaces is too hard and sucks up teacher and administrative resources. One school per campus does away with that burden. Hence, their proposed agreement.
THUS
All the references in the Sangeeth Peruri LTE encouraging the ‘sharing’ of this and seem so insincere. Figuring out time of day starts, stops, and who gets the gym or blacktop when…has been a source of immense friction for years and years. Just ask retired Egan Principal Dyckman!
The idea that BCS and LASD could share specialized teachers – like even music teachers – seems unlikely. The two programs are very different and are looking for different qualities in teachers. However, if one is talking about sharing those Special Ed teachers both entities need to hire from the County Board of Education to come onsite and handle your seriously handicapped, well yeah, maybe that could work. But I doubt it. It seems like spying really. LASD just wants to collect the data and manipulate it for PR purposes!
And then there is the alarming use by Peruri of the word “collaborate.” In the 2nd World War collaborating was negative. But now the CTA… and interestingly MVWSD in its successful prevention of a new charter…has used that word extensively. Now collaboration is a good thing, in fact a necessary thing. Collaborate like crazy. If you are a charter and fail to be ‘collaborative,’ whatever that means, you are discriminating, you are not simpatico, whatever?
Do Collaboration and Collusion have the same linguistic roots? .
