When Oversight Becomes Interference

What feels abstract in LBUSD becomes clearer when you understand the difference between governance and interference.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to explain what is happening in LBUSD, and I understand why. The issues can feel abstract. When you attend a meeting, you see it. When you talk to teachers and staff, you hear it. There is real concern, but it is not always one single dramatic moment that people can point to.

What we are seeing is a pattern, and it seems the board majority may be confused about its role.

To be clear, I believe a school board has authority. It oversees the district, sets priorities, approves goals, hires and evaluates the superintendent, and holds the superintendent accountable for results. That is the job.

However, the board is not supposed to run the district day-to-day. It is not supposed to jump into the middle of staff processes, make operational decisions from the dais, chase rumors, pressure employees, or decide exactly how every goal gets accomplished.

The board’s job is to ask: Are we meeting the goal? Are we serving students? Is the superintendent accountable for getting this done?

Instead, what we keep seeing is board members inserting themselves into the “how.” Graduation location is one example. Communication planning is another. Facilities, staffing concerns, investigations, public narratives — again and again, staff are put in the position of trying to do their jobs while also managing board interference, board pressure, or board second-guessing in real time.

This is not transparency or accountability. It is micromanagement.

The cost of all of this is falling on the people closest to our kids. Teachers and staff should not feel like they are constantly under suspicion. They should not have to work under the strain of unfounded rumors, shifting demands, or public questioning that makes their jobs harder and their workplace less stable.

Administrators should be able to lead without constantly managing political pressure. Families should be able to trust that decisions are being made through a stable, professional process. Not through rumor, reaction, or whoever can apply the most pressure via email or in a meeting.

The irony is that everyone says they want strong schools. But strong schools depend on trust, clarity, and teachers and staff being respected enough to do the work they were hired to do.

Oversight and accountability are important. But when a board cannot tell the difference between governing and interfering, it creates the very instability it claims to be solving.

LBUSD has incredible teachers, staff, administrators, families, and students. The board’s role should be to support a system that enables people to do their best work.

Students. Stability. Trust.

Right now, the board majority’s approach is putting all three at risk.