Judging from numerous public comments and a smattering of interviews held afterwards, many of the parents and teachers who left Tuesday night's San Diego Unified school board meeting felt not relief, nor joy, at learning their schools would not be closing, but rather disgust and fatigue.
After two weeks of angry protests, and after district staff had spent months studying — at the board's direction — which schools to close, the trustees voted Tuesday to scrap a plan that would never have existed had they not come up with it in the first place.
"This has caused two weeks of good, lost instruction at our school, because everyone has been worried and stressed out," said E. Jay Derwae, principal of Marvin Elementary, one of the schools initially slated for closure. "It's unnecessary, totally totally unnecessary to have put any child through that. And it does filter down to them, and that's the saddest part."
Statement: "In Oakland, the trustee had two bodyguards following him around," school board member Scott Barnett during an Oct. 31 press conference announcing his financial recovery plan.
Determination: Mostly True
Analysis: Barnett this week unveiled a plan he said would save San Diego Unified from insolvency. Barnett wants to cancel scheduled employee pay raises, cut pay by another 10 percent across the district and put a tax increase on the November 2012 budget.