LASD Superintendent and Board of Trustees

Los Altos School District

201 Covington Rd, Los Altos, CA 94024

 

Dear Superintendent and Board of Trustees,

We, the parents of students attending Springer Elementary School in the Los Altos School District, are writing to express our deep concern and disappointment regarding the recent decision to reassign the principals of both Springer and Santa Rita Elementary Schools. We sincerely request you to reconsider the decision and at the very least the policies and processes that brought us here.

Principal Khalid has been an invaluable asset to our school community for the past four years. Her leadership, dedication, and commitment to the well-being and academic success of our students have greatly enriched the learning environment at Springer. Under her guidance, our school is rebounding, and she has fostered a sense of belonging and excellence among students, parents, and staff alike.

This decision process does not seem to have taken the LASD goal stated “Engage staff, parents, and community members as learning partners” into account. Our community is feeling blindsided, disheartened, and apathetic about a school we love dearly. Emotions aside, please consider Springer Elementary School has experienced abnormally high turnover rate in leadership over recent years and through a global pandemic. This constant instability has disrupted the continuity of our children's education and has undermined the sense of trust and community within our school.  As it’s been said, a principal search should be able to attract a great principal with the desired experience to fill the role at Loyola without moving TWO principals and disrupting TWO communities in order to fill one empty position.

We would like to draw attention to a decision-making process seemingly devoid of consideration for community impact and a communication plan dismissive to the tight-knit communities marketed as the key thing which sets LASD apart from BCS. Moving the Springer and Santa Rita principals may be a sound business decision when considering the two schools' student bodies and programs paired with the experience and skill sets of the two principals. Our communities would never want to stand in between a principal we adore and his/her career development. However, as with every organization (school, business, nonprofit, etc.), leadership changes not only have to be a good fit for the leader and the open position but also for the overall health of the organization. In this case, the latter seems to have not been considered thoughtfully, if at all. Change will be endured but at what cost? It’s just simply the wrong time for the overall health of the organization to force major leadership changes. We would like to remind everyone respectfully that community elementary schools are such a special kind of organization that we should really take the overall health of the school and community into consideration when considering a leadership change.

A brief history of Springer's principal change:

• This principal change will make 5 principals in 9 years, 4 from external searches, and 3 principal searches in just 5 years for Springer.  That’s incredible instability in a pivotal leadership role.
• For the 2018-2019 school year the new principal from an outside search was such a poor fit that she resigned and left the district after one year.
• August-December 2019 Superintendent McGonagle was the principal due to lack of candidates in the search pool.

It’s important to consider Mrs. Khalid came to Springer in January 2020 just 6 weeks before Covid lockdown. We had 6 weeks to come together before we were all sent home. 

Mrs. Khalid’s first 1.5 years at Springer included lockdown, virtual school, welcoming small cohorts on rotating schedules, policing distance between children and staff, mandating kids cover their faces at all times, etc. The past 1.5 years of school with no Covid restrictions have been an arduous battle to repair our community. It has been considerably challenging to engage parents and help kids cope with behavior issues related to Covid. Mrs. Khalid has partnered with PTA and our parents, and we’ve been working diligently to repair, grow, and get to a new normal. Her 4 years tenure as described here cannot be evaluated like any other in history and similar could be said for the principal at Santa Rita.

Springer is still deep in Covid recovery. We have not been able to return to all of the traditions that make up the fabric of our community. We do not yet have the same number of willing parent volunteers needed to build and lead our community as before Covid. Our PTA will end this year in an unprecedented budget deficit for the second year in a row and will have to cut programs and events for next school year. Most PTAs across the district are facing similar challenges, which have been discussed all year. Parent apathy toward the district paired with starting over with a new principal will set our community back years in progress; setbacks that might cost us enrollment, donations, volunteers, and general reputation. It seems clear the current health of at least Springer if not the overall LASD organization is still in recovery mode from Covid and cannot support highly impactful forced leadership changes.

We urge the school district to reconsider this decision to force leadership changes at both Springer and Santa Rita Elementary Schools and allow our schools at least two more years to fully recover from the global pandemic and rebuild our communities before further changes are considered.

 

Respectfully,

Parents of Springer Students