Since we were all fresh from the school naming here in Temecula, we asked her many questions – no one ever told you who he was? Not a teacher? An assembly on his birthday? A display? A principal? Nope, she said, she doesn’t remember anyone ever telling her who he was from kindergarten through 6th grade.

Never thought I would moan for the consensus building days of Pat Novotney – did I write that – but that is where I sit after the naming of the three new schools in Temecula and the new high school in Murrieta. Ironic the Temecula school board wants to get away from  place names and into names representing and honoring people and values, and Murrieta would choose a place name, yet both would come up short.

The reason is the same – no meaningful parent or student involvement.
A school’s name, and at the high school level, its colors and mascot, are of great importance to the people who go there. Having had students at both TVHS and Chaparral High School, I am much happier
buying blue and green clothes for sporting events than I was buying brown and gold. Black and gold doesn’t sit with me too well.

But it doesn’t matter if it sits with me well. Obviously, no name or color sits well with everyone. What matters, and I don’t understand why our local politicians haven’t caught on to the beauty of this, is the process. Americans, by nature, care about the process.

If you tell me you came up with these colors and names and floated them among acquaintances or friends, and that you are parents too and have students who go to the schools, or whatever, it is still a top down process and ripe for resistance. If you tell me you formed a committee of students, parents and staff -- as Chaparral High School did – and then, here is the beauty – put them out to defend the choice, you have a process I am happy with.

Even more beautiful, if you want to push your prerogative as an elected board member, you can still completely manipulate the process, like choosing three names or color schemes yourself and having the committee select from those three, and I am still happier than if you
just name them.

Pat Novotney’s administration was accused of having parent committees that had no power and were basically lip service. The current Temecula school board’s attitude has been to act, by virtue of their election, as parent representatives, and to disband or ignore whatever other avenues (such as PTA) parents had open to them. How much more powerful it would have been to take those parent groups and EMPOWER them.

Good leaders lead without creating resistance or dependence. It is a balancing act difficult to achieve. We were all tired of dependence. Now we are tired of resistance.