SMMUSD HDQTRS The final Board of Education meeting of 2007, held on Thursday, was a time to express gratitude, reflecting on the challenges the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District faced this year and how the school leaders navigated it through uncertain times.
For school board president Kathy Wisnicki and vice president Oscar de la Torre, it was a year in which they were at the head of a school board for a district that faced accusations of a lack of financial accountability, suspicions of questionable practices taking place within the district’s special education program and most recently, a fallout between Malibu parents and the Board of Education regarding the allocation of Measure BB funding money.
After fellow school board members, administrators and union leaders expressed words of gratitude to Wisnicki and de la Torre, who saw the conclusion of their presidency and vice presidency, respectively, two new leaders were selected to guide the Board of Education in 2008.
For the first time since being elected to the board in 2002, de la Torre was selected to succeed Wisnicki as the president, while Jose Escarce was chosen to assume the role as the vice president.
Escarce, a UCLA professor in the David Geffen School of Medicine, was elected to the board in 2000 and is up for reelection next year. Escarce, who is also a published author at the RAND Corporation,
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 15, 2007. Read the original PDF.