Is the life cycle so prevalent even school boards have to go through
it? If so, I sure will be glad to get out of the pre-teens. Those years produce great
growth, admittedly, but not very pleasant.
As it is, Temecula Valley Unified School District is now ten years
old. When Dr. Pat Novotney first took the helm, there was only one elementary school and
one middle school. Under her tenure, unification occurred, adding the high school, and
then gradually, and soon exponentially, the last decade saw growing pains of nineteen
schools added. That is a lot of height! No wonder everyone got
crabby.
The first signs of pre-pubescence were surely Patti Smith’s
election four years ago. Parents, teachers, even administrators were beginning to chafe at
the benign autocracy Dr. Novotney ran. Complaints were she micro-managed, she held tight
control, you disagreed with her at your peril. When Dr. Novotney gave you a choice, it was
like asking a three-year-old which color socks she wanted to wear, blue or green, but, by
now we knew red and yellow existed too. We wanted to grow up, have our own opinions.
So we chose Patti Smith, who like every 11-year-old’s best
friend, had a knack for understanding and a knack for talking back. We liked both.
Because of that, we elected her friends. However, as happens so
often in middle school, once her clique was together, she shut us out. They started being
mean to everybody who wasn’t in their group.
Like a set of braces, they went about straightening things.
Improvements people had been looking a long time for were enacted: more accountability,
remedial help, single-track school, completion of buildings. However, the tightening was
so unpleasant and began to hurt so much, people again began to complain that they
micro-managed, held tight control, and you disagreed with them at your peril. Everyone
seems glad the day has come to take the braces off.
Now we head into our teens in Temecula, the time one truly sets the
path for their future. We are better off for the strife we have behind us. Adolescence was
made to help us know who we want to be. I think we are done having our own little groups
of twos or threes and can come and reason together.
In a less turbulent phase, the refrain about this election might
have been the quality of the candidate slate. I wanted to cast more than two votes.
Adolescence however, brought out the worst in all of us.
Don’t worry about it. The life cycle does prevail. We will grow
up. We will establish ourselves. Wipe off your brows worried parents, the pre-teens are
over – or almost over.