Greater Orange News Service

Orange Unified School District’s Interim Superintendent Edward Velasquez quits amid growing chaos

Chaos Star, ancient symbol of Chaos

The truth apparently came quickly to now former Interim Superintendent Edward Velasquez that OUSD is being led into chaos.  After just a few weeks and a few chaotic Board meetings, Velasquez bailed.

It also is now apparent that Velasquez was not a hired political gun, but a true educator who really did have a focus on student achievement.  He, like OUSD voters, was fooled when the OUSD majority came calling.

None of that was known until this week when Velasquez abruptly resigned amid the growing chaos in the Orange Unified District Office.  

Yes, the OUSD D.O. of Despair.

This however should not be of any surprise when you look at the history of the last radical political takeover of OUSD that plunged the district into focusing on culture wars instead of education.  Local at first, the district quickly became the poster child for school dysfunction then a laughing stock of education with a reputation nationwide.  Experienced teachers and administrators fled.

At first just the parents back then noticed the quality of OUSD slipping.

Then the Greater Orange non-educator community at large began being affected by the chaos and negative news reports across local, state and eventually nation-wide media. As the chaos grew with a teacher strike and outrageous lawsuits that attracted national civil rights organizations, slowly local realtors, businessmen and elected city leaders all started to feel the unrest was affecting the community and their jobs too.

Now we have current OUSD Board of Trustees, Rick Ledesma and John Ortega repeating the mistakes of the last radical OUSD Board that ruled at the turn of the century. That Board, the Jacobson Majority too hid their radical political agenda to get elected. They then plunged into a radical political agenda.

Quickly they went down a path the current Radical Majority is back on: embracing radical politics over education; firing a popular and effective superintendent; Brown Act violations; and a race to the bottom of district morale.

It was and now is an all out assault on the America’s centuries long  bi-partisan support of public education.

Ironically, Ledesma and Ortega were part of the Citizens slate that replaced the radical Jacobson Board in the 2001 OUSD Recall.  In the over 20 years since that recall, those last two trustees left from that 2001 Citizens Board who then helped right the OUSD chaos, are apparently now hell-bent on leading the district they once saved  down the same radical road back into chaos.

It does look like the Greater Orange Community has learned from history.  While it took years for Greater Orange to come together to retake their schools from a group with a purely political culture war agenda,  this time it appears that there will be no lag time in confronting the radical political elements that have pushed OUSD leadership into chaos. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON VALASQUEZ QUITTING (click on): 

The Voice of OC

The Replacement for Orange Unified’s Fired Superintendent Resigns After a Month 

OC Register

Orange Unified’s interimsuperintendent gone after just a month on the job

# posted by /OCS/ Orange Communication System @ 11:03 AM