Parents, Students Demand Removal of Principal

About 40 parents and students picketed City Hall on Thursday afternoon, calling for the replacement of Del Amo Elementary School Principal Cecile Marrero.

The protesters, carrying signs reading “Save our school” and “I need a principal who cares,” said Marrero has not allowed proper parent involvement, has left several staff positions unfilled and has intimidated many of the school’s teachers.

But Pat McKenna, administrator of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Banning-Carson cluster, said mediation sessions with Marrero, the school’s teachers and a trained facilitator began Thursday and will continue indefinitely until the conflict is resolved. Marrero couldn’t be reached for comment.

Some parents and teachers “want the principal out, and that isn’t the way the process necessarily works,” McKenna said.

However, parents including Toye Davis, whose son is in third grade at Del Amo, said the mediation process cannot remedy Marrero’s lack of leadership.

Davis and other parents who organized the protest said that in the three years since Marrero became principal, more than a dozen staff members have left the school and 10 veteran teachers plan to leave at the end of the school year.