Los Angeles School Board Buys Out Britton’s Contract
What was the continual focus of school news this year? Budget cuts! Tremendous deficits! The school district needs to chop everywhere. School employees should willingly agree to pay cuts, perhaps forgo medical benefits. Is this money crisis real? Is this a plot to convince the public into thinking that the greedy teachers are responsible for the paucity of funds going to the local schools?
Despite continual cries of poverty, LAUSD has somehow managed to scrape together more than $225,000 to buy out Britton’s contract. Obviously, this demonstrates the district’s priorities. Funds could have been spent to provide small-group instruction to our many at-risk students. Funds could have been spent to provide counselors to help troubled students before they became troublemakers or dropouts. While the board members met in their air-conditioned rooms, they could have considered spending these funds to air-condition our year-round schools, now sweltering in the summer heat.
But no. We needed to buy out Britton’s contract. Where are our priorities?
REBECCA ANN PENSO
Los Angeles
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