Emotions are a wonderful human quality, but when they drive
decision making they become the devil sitting on one shoulder,
taking over common sense, which is clinging to the other trying to
be heard.
Emotions are a wonderful human quality, but when they drive decision making they become the devil sitting on one shoulder, taking over common sense, which is clinging to the other trying to be heard.
We believe the devil has rooted itself in the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District and has a segment of the community seeing fire where there isn’t one.
The effort to recall three ASJUSD trustees – Andy Hsia-Coron, Rachel Ponce and Sylvia Rios Metcalf – by Community for Better Schools (CBS), a group of residents that have rightful concerns about the direction of the school district, is well-intentioned, but misplaced.
It has become an emotionally based course of action that is only damaging the district at a time when a concerned community and Board should be working together the best they can to tackle more important issues – budget cuts and dwindling enrollment, to only name a few.
This deharmonizing effort began when the Board decided not to renew the contract of Aromas School Principal Mary-Ann Tucker. First, we question whether the recall move would have even ignited if this personnel decision wasn’t made in the first place. In an attempt to rationalize their emotions, CBS members then began to state the recall was based on not being heard by the Board and not having a voice in their children’s education.
With all due respect, trustees did listen about the concerns regarding Tucker and took action, taking the course not popular with one segment of the community. However, trustees are elected members, voted in by the community’s voters.
There is another segment of residents who oppose the recall effort, and they are the ones clinging to common sense.
In a time of financial hardships for school districts across the state, the cost of a recall election could cost the district $45,000, money the ASJUSD cannot afford to spend on such a move when the three trustees are up for election in November 2004.
Also, the Hispanic representation Ponce and Rios Metcalf bring to the board is important because 46 percent of the school district is Hispanic.
When emotions drive policy-making decisions and actions, it creates the devil’s playground. And he’s playing in the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District.
