Angry at the Wrong Agency

In the July 3 Orange County edition of The Times, a letter from me appeared regarding my taking affront with the term “demote” used by your paper in reference to the reassignment of school administrators to positions as classroom teachers. Ironically, the July 3 Southeast/Long Beach sections carried an article of similar circumstance which reported the “demotion” of a high school principal in Compton to the position of elementary school teacher (“Board Demotes Principal of High School”).

Initially, I became as incensed at your use of the word “demote” as I had with your Orange County colleagues’ use of the same word. However, after reading the entire article I realized the source of my irritation was misdirected.

Something definitely needs looking into when a school board’s resolution to reassign an administrator to an elementary classroom teaching position is based upon “cause . . . for willful misconduct, gross negligence, poor administrative judgment, dishonesty and flagrant violation of a district’s rules and regulations and state law.” Is the Compton Unified School District telling us that a person with the above mentioned “attributes” is thus qualified to teach young children?

CECILE MAURICE

Seal Beach