WATSONVILLE—“It’s been a crazy, crazy, crazy crazy year,” Pajaro Valley Unified School District Trustee Daniel Dodge, Jr. said Wednesday, just before the board appointed trustees Kim De Serpa and Maria Orozco as President and Vice-President, respectively.
They will hold the positions until December 2022.
In addition to the Covid-19 pandemic, a fatal stabbing at Aptos High School, fires and rains that wrought havoc on many schools, Dodge may have also been referring to a series of meetings earlier this year, when newly appointed Board President Georgia Acosta led efforts to abruptly terminate Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez.
That decision was unanimously reversed about one week later in a 7-0 vote, after hours of public comment lambasting Acosta and the decision.
The board’s final meeting of the year is typically a time to appoint new leadership, and Wednesday’s proceeded with little discussion except for praise for outgoing president and vice-president Jennifer Holm and Jennifer Schacher.
“I know we have gone through a pandemic, fires, we have had horrible rains, flooding and quite (a) bit of discourse, and the entire time I could count on you to be respectful, fair, kind and always willing to listen to the public, to our students and our administration,” Rodriguez said.
De Serpa agreed.
“I know it was probably not what you signed up for,” she said. “There was a steep learning curve and you have both done a great job effortlessly.”
Acosta and Trustee Oscar Soto were absent.
Once seated in the President’s chair, De Serpa began immediately with the board’s only other business that night—approving the schedule for the coming year and appointing board members to community committees.
“Let’s get to work,” she said.
