Tracy doesn’t know what he’s talking about

In reference to Scott Tracy’s June 27 op-ed in the La Cañada Valley Sun I offer the following: The purpose of a charter district is to address the problems the school district is facing, like with Common Core. Simply put, the public schools are run by the state and the unions and not our community.

La Cañada Flintridge residents own the public schools via LCUSD, the community helps finance them through property taxes, but has no say in what is taught. The PATRIOT PAC (a political action committee for better local government) believes that the residents own the public schools, the residents fund the public schools, and the residents know what is best to teach our children in our public schools.

Tracy made a number of points. Tracy is flat-out wrong. All students in LCF have first priority on seats in a charter district. The problem LCUSD has now is that we do not have enough students to fill all of the empty seats in the classrooms. The LCUSD rents classroom space to some private schools.

The approval of more than 50% of the teachers would be needed to convert to a charter district. (The key term Tracy failed to mention was that only “union teachers” vote). The LCUSD can become a charter district and the union teachers can stay in the district.

Teachers opting out can still work for the charter district despite Tracy’s statement to the contrary.

Why would any student want to opt out of La Cañada schools? If a student does opt out, there will be a waiting line of other students who will want to occupy the empty seats. The LCUSD can take back the rented classrooms and fill up the seats with more income.

The moral of the story is: Tracy serves on the LCUSD Governing Board and has no idea what he was writing about, or he did not think that anyone would check his information.

William Watts
La Cañada Flintridge

Editor’s Note: The writer is treasurer, PATRIOT PAC.