2 New Trustees Welcomed to Board

Hoping to usher in a new era of cooperation, trustees of the Simi Valley Unified School District welcomed two new members, chose a board president and bade farewell to a superintendent at their last regular meeting of the school year.

With their family members taking photographs from the aisles of the City Council chambers, new trustees Janice DiFatta and Caesar O. Julian took the oath of office. They replace board members Judy Barry, who retired, and Debbie Sandland, who was defeated in the November election. Trustee Diane Collins was reelected.

Later, the trustees--new and not so new--voted unanimously to name Norm Walker their next president.

The Tuesday meeting was the last for interim Supt. Robert Purvis, who led the district after Mary Beth Wolford departed Aug. 1.

Since then, Purvis has steered the district through a restructuring that bumped ninth-graders from junior high to high school and through the process of cutting class sizes for first- through third-graders.

When Purvis returns to retirement in January, new schools chief Tate Parker, from the Murrieta Unified School District in Riverside County, will take office.