Members question citizens group's agenda.
Citizens for Better Schools has made its presence known. The group-formed when the school year ended in May-grew out ***image1***of unresolved concerns regarding safety, work climate and wages. In recent weeks CBS has placed ads in newspapers and voiced, at school board meetings, discontent with Supt. Gloria Rendón's performance. One school board member, however, has put the focus on the group itself and questions its credibility.
Board member Marcy Litzenberg believes the group has a political agenda and that its tactics are having a negative impact on the district. She also claims one CBS member offered to run her school board campaign five years ago on the condition she help fire former Supt. Veronica Garcia (Litzenberg said no). "These people have pre-existing agendas of their own that they are playing out through Citizens for Better Schools and the Parent Teacher Committee at Santa Fe High School," Litzenberg says.
Litzenberg isn't naming names, but it's reasonable to assume Mitch Buszek may be the person to whom she's referring. Buszek is the head of CBS and runs Santa Fe High's Parent Teacher Committee. He's been an outspoken critic of the district's administration.
Buszek, however, says he never offered to run Litzenberg's campaign. He says CBS has no agenda regarding a new superintendent and denies the group was formed with a political agenda. Rather, he says, the group was formed in response to a variety of factors such as the departure of Santa Fe High math teacher Megan Siesennop and the response by the district to a parent whose child was injured at school. "Our actions are the result of the district not having textbooks for our kids, no heating and cooling of our classrooms and an administration that's been rude, disrespectful and retaliatory," Buszek says.
Litzenberg also claims she was recently approached by a CBS member who said the group could ensure fellow board members Frank Montaño and Mary Ellen Gonzales voted Litzenberg's way on certain matters if Litzenberg joined CBS.
Buszek denies the allegation. Board members Gonzales and Montaño, in turn, deny they are unduly influenced by the group.
"My vote was not promised to anyone for anything," Gonzales says. "Decisions I make may be parallel to CBS's views, but the school board is a totally nonpartisan position."
Board member Frank Montaño resents the suggestion he is under anyone's influence. "I'm an independent thinker," he says. "I'm sure a lot of people in this community feel they can speak to me and lobby me, sure. But the people sitting on the board are independent thinkers. I can't say that there's one organization or even one individual that can influence me."
Nonetheless, Litzenberg says the group is on a witch hunt. Currently, she says, it's after board member Martin Lujan. (Buszek acknowledged the group plans to seek a recall of Lujan and claims several district policies have been violated during his tenure on the board and that Lujan has repeatedly slandered him publicly. Buszek did manage a previous campaign of Lujan's.)
Lujan says during his campaign for re-election this year CBS members offered to campaign for him if he considered removing certain officials from their positions in the district. Lujan declined the deal and says, as a result, "I think some [CBS] members are very upset because of our difference of opinion." However, to develop a vendetta against a board member because of a difference in opinion "is just wrong." Moreover, Lujan says, "this is the same organization whose leadership divided the leadership at Santa Fe High. I think we need to question their validity."
Litzenberg believes she will be targeted next because she has publicly disagreed with the group.
Asked for CBS' stance on Litzenberg, Buszek said, "It's really too bad that a board member doesn't think the opinion of faculty, parents and community members is credible. We feel betrayed that the majority of board members have not addressed these major concerns."
