San Diego Education Report
Answer:

It wasn't sudden.  In reality, things were going wrong for many
years--ever since Libia Gil was brought down from Seattle to put teachers
in their place--but the district was able to put a positive spin on its actions
thanks to Gil's political connections.  
Question:

Did Seattle School District want Gil back after
she left CVESD under odd circumstances?

Answer:

No.  (See Libia Gil The School Board Flunks Google 101
Seattle Weekly 2003)  After some consideration of
candidates, Seattle said it was going to do background
checks of candidates, and Gil withdrew before those
checks could be done.  Good choice.
So...how did things suddenly go so terribly wrong?
What Went Wrong at CVESD?
The CVESD School Board,
controlled by Patrick Judd,
Pamela Smith, and Larry
Cunningham, has
long
boasted about its

"collegiality."
 

Unfortunately, this means they
never say to each other, when
someone has a really bad idea:
"Hey, you can't do that!  It's against the law, and it's a bad idea anyway.

"There's a reason why it's against the law!

"We should stop getting rid of all these good teachers, like Heather Smith,
Heather Coman, Luci Fowers, and Maura Larkins at Castle Park.  

"We shouldn't have given control of Castle Park Elementary in 2001 to a
small group of teachers who clearly had too much time on its hands.  

"The teachers in power are as thick as thieves with an even tinier group of
parents who took control of the PTA.  

"And now the PTA is missing $20,000!

"What were we thinking!  We should have done something when the PTA
viciously attacked the principal and the Superintendent and the Mexican
parents in the press."

"We have put teachers and administrators in positions where they knew we
expected them to commit perjury if they wanted to keep their jobs.

"We have got to clean up our act.  

"Simply refusing to turn over documents, and refusing to testify, isn't doing
our job.  We hold a public trust.  We've got to stop lying, and wasting
hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on lawyers, just so we can cover
up our crimes."
Is the problem too much "collegiality"?
Make a comment !
Maura Larkins' blog:
San Diego
Education Report Blog