Trustee Mildred Lynch, 81, Is Proud to Be From the Old School

She likes to call herself the oldest sitting school board member in America, and at 81, Mildred Lynch doesn’t waste any time speaking her mind.

Pleasantries and diplomacy take too long.

After 60 years in education, this great-grandmother knows who she is, what she wants and how to get it done. She bristles at today’s curriculum, calling it too “touchy feely” and “stupid.” Teachers are too timid. Federal and state governments too intrusive.

It’s not 1939 Kansas anymore, when she graduated from Benedictine College for women and subjects had names like history, not theory of knowledge.

But Lynch, a Conejo Unified School District trustee for 13 years, doesn’t see anything wrong with the way it was. As for getting back to basics, she has no qualms about going to the mat for what she believes in.

At a time when liberals and religious conservatives vie for control of school boards, Lynch aligns herself with neither camp. She is simply Mildred.

When the state created a standardized test in 1994 that dared assess a student’s emotions, Lynch’s opposition inspired her clarion call that feeling a subject isn’t the same as learning it.

“That caused quite a riot, and I was happy to be part of it,” Lynch said.

She doesn’t apologize for her stalwart opinions nor the manner in which she dispenses them.

Direct. Difficult. Unlikable.

They are her own words to describe what her colleagues, students--even family members--may think of her.

“I like being that way, and I have no illusions of myself,” Lynch said. “There is no pretense or guile in me . . . but nice and sweet is so far beyond my imagination.”

Lynch has a commanding presence and a strong handshake. At first glimpse, one imagines Janet Reno’s mom. She speaks loudly and firmly; never in platitudes, mostly with wit.

Make a remark she finds absurd, and she’ll groan with disgust and set you straight. She’s not afraid to say something’s “dumb.”

Despite the lively disagreements between Lynch and district Supt. Jerry Gross--and the strong words that are often exchanged--he does have a soft spot for her.

“She can appear to be a gruff old lady,” Gross said. “But inside, she is a very sensitive and caring person.”

Maybe it’s the five children and 11 grandchildren. But even Lynch doesn’t fall for that idea.

“Sometimes I wonder if my own kids like me; I know at times I don’t like them,” Lynch said. “They love their father, but probably just admire me. They say I have high standards, was too rigid and never gave an inch.”

This from a mother who nearly flunked her own son when he was put in her classroom, against her will.

“I didn’t want him there; he was a wretch,” she said. “He was a nice guy, but a big-time athlete who let all the girls do his homework. So I gave him a D; that’s all he earned.”

Tom Lynch, now 46, admitted he deserved that D and said he respects his mom because she is “ruthlessly honest,” and although strict when he was growing up, was always fair.

“She wasn’t one of those TV moms, but she took care of us,” he said. “She’s still just as hardheaded and opinionated. It doesn’t matter how much the times change, she’ll put her licks in, and you better listen.”

District colleagues said that although Lynch’s old-school convictions can be dogmatic, they are based on decades of experience and grounded in a sincere desire to produce well-polished, solid students.

“She’s the elder statesperson,” said board President Dolores DiDio. “She’s been there, done that, long before the rest of us.”

But her unwavering, if-it-worked-then-it-will-work-now mantra sometimes can get in the way of needed progress, DiDio said.

“That may be a stumbling block at times for her,” DiDio said. “Accepting some of the newer ideas is not as easy for her.”

DiDio is not talking about technology or culture. Lynch has a computer and uses e-mail. She has traveled the world from Central America to Asia, and still makes regular trips to Europe.

It’s the philosophy of education on which her mind is unyielding.

“Mildred’s an academic purist,” DiDio said. “To me, all subjects are academic. Take wood-shop class: There I see math, manual dexterity and creativity. Is that any less academic than English?”

Lynch, on the other hand, sees a lax system that needs a reality check. When kids can’t read or write and teachers don’t know how to teach, she says, she doesn’t consider celebrating the arts to be solving the problem. And it doesn’t help when high school sports are put on such a pedestal.

“We give out certificates to every kid in a sport, but nothing to recognize academics,” she said. “If we cut one sport, you’d have the whole town at the next board meeting. Cut out English, and I don’t think anyone would care.”

Rebel With a Cause

As a trustee, Lynch has tried to reward academic achievement. She created the Excellence in Education program, which recognizes top seniors in each traditional discipline.

Lynch likes to pay attention to students who normally don’t get much credit.

She was an English teacher for decades in less-well-groomed areas of Los Angeles and refers to her students as the “sandbox-lot seniors.”

They were the at-risk kids of the 1950s and 1960s: James Dean types who got into plenty of trouble, in class and out. One student who robbed a store during lunch break had shot and killed a clerk before coming to Lynch’s class. Sheriff’s deputies came during fifth period to arrest him.

“I taught some kids who had it rough,” said Lynch, who was named teacher of the year three times at Lawndale High School in Los Angeles County. “I tried to make them see there are good things in life no matter how rough it gets. I encouraged them to think and wonder.”

Lynch was always a step ahead of her rebellious students, mainly because she was a rebel herself as a young woman in college. That’s a surprise to many who know her now, considering how staunchly conservative she can be on the school board.

“To think I’m conservative now, my teachers wouldn’t believe it,” Lynch said. “I was a thorn in their side; a smart-aleck.”

Born during World War I in New Jersey, Mildred Fitzgerald left home to attend a Catholic women’s college in Kansas. Independent-minded, she challenged the tenets of Catholicism and her role as a woman in society.

“I remember my mother saying, ‘You better behave yourself out there. I raised you to be independent, but this is ridiculous; you’ve gone too far.’ ” Lynch said. “This was still the 1930s, so I wasn’t rebelling like kids did in the ‘60s, but I didn’t always like the rules or see any reason to live by them.”

Although Lynch gave her mother a hard time, she says her own kids were worse. And she revels in the fact her children are now nearing their 50s.

“They’re beginning to mellow with age and have differences with their kids,” she said. “It’s very funny to see the cycle go round.”

Lynch stays on top of what it means to be young today. She regularly visits area high schools, sits in on classes and notices what teenagers are up to.

“Life goes on, but kids don’t change,” she said.

Recently, she was driving around town and was cut off by a car full of Thousand Oaks High School girls. Lynch angrily blew her horn at the reckless kids.

“Those girls gave me the finger,” she said. “I know it’s as old as time, but vulgarity still upsets me. Foul language becomes a way of life, and that bothers me more than those stupid rings in the nose.”

Lynch may hesitate to admit it, but she was an early advocate of women’s liberation--or at least allowing a woman to plot her own destiny.

But she resents the organized women’s movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, saying she did just fine by herself.

“Women can do a lot of good for themselves without joining a rally group. I have a problem with the complaints and whining,” Lynch said. “No man has ever stood in my way--just ask my husband.”

A Lift From Letters

Bob Lynch met Mildred during college. He went to the men’s school across town, and they’ve been married 57 years. He’s also 81, and they live quietly in their split-level condo near The Oaks mall. He’ll sit and read while she roams the house, taking calls on her cordless phone.

“Dad just kicks back, while she keeps one eye on him and the other on her work,” said their son Tom. “She just keeps on going and doesn’t stop. She only sleeps four or five hours a night.”

Lynch, “in spite of my advanced age,” is serious about running for a fourth school board term this fall. She would be 85 before it was finished.

To her, age is irrelevant. “I feel fine, it’s the other people who have a problem,” she said. “I can match wits with anyone I know.”

Her colleagues know that’s true, and no one has yet made her age an issue.

“She’s quite young, compared to Strom Thurmond,” Supt. Gross said, referring to the 95-year-old U.S. senator.

A new school year and the election are near. Lynch is getting ready for what she expects to be a “nasty” campaign, especially with a controversial $88-million school bond issue on the November ballot. But she is ready for her usual fight.

And she will do it virtually alone. Her husband helps her make signs, but Lynch does not use a campaign manager and takes no contributions.

Lynch has thought of calling it quits. She is, after all, 81. But her work is not finished. There’s still a lot of “her way” left to be done. Maybe, after one more term, things will be closer to being right.

“What’s the alternative?” she asks.

Late at night, while Bob is asleep, Mildred will sit in the front room and think about her life. She’ll pull out an old scrapbook her students gave her when she retired the first time, in 1980. In it are pages of letters. Nice ones, thanking her for being so tough. That it meant she cared.

“You never realize what they thought of you. It gives you such a lift when you are down and when you wonder which way to go--even at this age,” Lynch said. “So when I read those letters, I think there was some good, and maybe there’s some left.”