Search Underway for Principal’s Successor

As Morningside Elementary School prepares to say goodbye to a popular principal Friday, officials at the LEARN campus say they are still not close to choosing her successor.

Victoria Montez is leaving Morningside, where she’s been principal since 1991, to take a job with the Los Angeles Unified School District’s School Utilization Office. Montez, an educator for 25 years, will help administer year-round schooling programs and the recently mandated statewide transition to 20-student classrooms.

“I definitely have mixed feelings about leaving,” Montez said. “It’s a wonderful school with great children and parents, and because of that I am not happy to go. But this is a good opportunity for me professionally and it’s time to move on.”

Montez said Assistant Principal Jim Kennedy will serve as acting principal until a permanent replacement is named and that she will continue to stay involved in Morningside’s affairs from her office downtown. Kennedy, who is actively involved in the selection process, said he was not sure when a replacement for Montez would be named. However, he did say that hiring a new principal was taking longer than expected.

“Each group has one voice, and those four voices ultimately have to agree on a candidate,” said Kennedy, referring to teachers, parents, school administrators and classified workers (teacher aides, office workers and other school employees), whose representatives form the selection committee at LEARN schools.

LEARN, or Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, is a district-wide program that seeks to decentralize control of campuses by turning over key decisions to a panel of parents, staff and teachers.

“It can be a difficult process, and we’re learning as we go along,” Kennedy said. “In the long run, the LEARN system works best because even though not every group will get everything they want, they will be a part of the process.”

“The goal is to find an individual everyone can live with.”