This is from my personal experience; I applied to the district to transfer my two children to Glenview due to its proximity to their daycare provider and Esperanza High School, where I taught. I never regretted that choice. They both received excellent educations there, which formed the foundation for their entire academic experience and careers in education.

I’m sorry to hear that Glenview might become a charter school, as other school sites exist within this district. I fully understand the need for charter schools in communities where public schools are not providing for their students or are unavailable. However, destroying an exemplary school district that has served its students’ educational needs well for 150 years to justify placing charter schools that are mostly unwanted and certainly unnecessary is backward. And it certainly causes me to question who will profit from this financial folly.

If what is happening within the PYLUSD is not stopped, the residents will be left with a school district that has been bled dry financially and administratively. The list of administrators who have been told that they will not be returning next school year has been growing rapidly. The most talented teachers will not apply to teach here, and those currently employed will be looking for other workplaces.

Most importantly, many families living inside this district will sacrifice financially by moving to other communities whose districts are not under siege or sending their children to private schools. If this had happened while my children were still in school, I would have found a way to get them out of here and into Servite and Rosary. This comes from a former public school teacher who is the daughter of two public school teachers— who all dedicated their careers to the public school system we believed in.

Students cannot thrive in schools without stability, and the administrators feel they are standing on trap doors that could give way at any time. Teachers are terrified for their futures as they see their administrators falling through those trap doors at unprecedented numbers and their schools turning into charter schools around them. This needs to be turned around. It’s time.

The PYLUSD has been my family since 1978, and I am bereft, heartsick, and mad as hell to see this happening to my family.​