Lincoln High, which has been without a permanent principal for nearly a year, will head into another school year without a permanent principal.
San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten has decided to extend the search for a permanent replacement into a second year – something highly unusual, reports VOSD’s Mario Koran.
“The protracted search amplifies the sense of disruption and disorganization that Lincoln parents have repeatedly vocalized,” Koran writes. “It’s been years since Lincoln High reopened with a gleaming $129 million campus, and the school is spinning. Leaders come and go, each bringing new reforms. Rows of classrooms sit empty. In that decade, Lincoln has lost four permanent principals.”
Koran includes a letter from Cindy Barros, the head of the school’s parent-teacher organization, that details how she saw the latest failed principal search.
Barros writes that Marten didn’t hire the candidate selected by a community panel, made up of teachers, staff, students, community members, the current sitting principal and an area superintendent. The decision not to appoint him was “unacceptable, disrespectful and downright malicious,” she wrote.
Border Report: Fate of Border Wall Still in Flux
After failing to secure funding for President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” border wall in the most recent round of budget negotiations, the fate of the structure remains uncertain.
In this week’s Border Report, VOSD contributor Brooke Binkowski rounds up the news about the wall – from protests to new designs — that continues to come out despite its current financing shortfalls.
Binkowski also writes about violence in Tijuana, where the homicide rate has increased considerably since 2015.
She adds, for some lighter news, reporters from afar continue to “discover” Baja California’s food and wine scene.
Quick News Hits
• San Diego State University announced that Sally Roush will become interim president in July, making her the first woman to head the school. (KPBS)
• San Diego Free Press offered several hot takes from the left on the brutal division still tormenting the labor movement including a list of progressives credited for “bringing down” longtime Labor Council leader Mickey Kasparian. Kasparian though remains head of the local United Food and Commercial Workers, one of the largest in town.
• Oh good. A committee has been formed to address homelessness. (Union-Tribune)
• A bill from San Diego Assemblyman Todd Gloria that would require all county elections to go to November runoffs advanced to the State Senate. In case you missed it, VOSD’s Ry Rivard wrote more about this bill in last week’s Sacramento Report.
• Amidst some other things happening around the White House, Trump announced he wants to nominate San Diego’s “Papa” Doug Manchester as the U.S. Ambassador to … the Bahamas.