By Kathy Bradford —
February’s meeting featured a panel of three teachers, a student, a counselor, a principal, and a school board member. Teachers Megan Crawford, Todd Shadbourne, and Varo Asorian showed how much passion they bring to their classrooms. All had to learn new on-line tools and ways of teaching, and all spend seven hours a day on-line in class and may need to hold supplementary sessions after that to confer with students and parents. We all know how long teachers’ real days are, and it hasn’t changed in the era of the pandemic. The panel all felt that their efforts teaching on-line were being well received and they were able to exchange a few new ideas as well. Student school board member Sarah Liu was upbeat as well, and presented student-derived best practices from their high school perspective.
Positive energy was evident from middle school counselor Lisa Larson, principal Brent Kuykendall, and school board member Megan Crawford as well. Brent felt that working during the shutdown was “the most difficult thing I’ve faced in my career.” He felt the success of the school year was largely due to the teachers who “put time and a half in,” relearning teaching in a new environment. Lisa still counsels 8-12 students a day one on one. She also fosters extracurricular clubs and their activities. She focuses a lot of her efforts on ensuring student mental health, and mentoring parents in the new environment and expectations.
Overall, the discussion showed that we are lucky to have such dedicated, positive and passionate teachers, counselors and administrators in California schools. I want to thank them all for sharing their valuable time with us, and thank Ann Nye, our program director, for putting such a great panel together. If you missed the panel discussion you can read about it in our March newsletter and view the recording at the bottom of the article.
The Assembly District Delegate election results are in, and your representatives in the California Democratic Party include a diverse set of thoughtful people from across the AD66 cities. The fourteen delegates are listed below. Two PV Dems are included: Andrew DeBlock and Tony Hale, who was also elected to the executive board.
| Self Identified Female | Other Than Self Identified Female |
| Amy Howorth | Tony Hale, Executive Board Winner |
| Sara H. Deen | Andrew DeBlock |
| Jane Affonso | Bill Reynolds |
| Susan Goodlerner | Peter E. Aziz |
| Alyssa T. Watanabe | Jimmy Gow |
| Susan Brooks | Richard H. Huynh |
| Kenia Itzel Tello | Vinnie Malcolm |
The Los Angeles County Democratic Party has issued endorsements for the Redondo Beach city election to be held March 2. They include Bill Brand for Mayor, Brad Waller for City Council District 1, Todd Lowenstein for City Council District 2, Zein Obaji for City Council District 4 (correction from presentation), Harden Sooper for City Attorney, and Dan Elder, Jerome Chang and Kimberlee Isaacs for Board of Education. There will also be a city election in Hermosa Beach on May 11, but endorsements have not yet been announced.
Another great meeting. All of the panelists were so upbeat and positive about their activity, although all would prefer to be back in the classroom when it is safe to do so. Thank you, Ann, for all that you do to provide us with such interesting speakers.