School Trustees Bounced from ROP Board in What One Calls 'Mean-Spirited' Move

Trustees for the vowed to work in harmony at Wednesday’s special meeting and then promptly removed two trustees from a committee on which they enjoyed serving.

The board voted to remove Trustees Ellen Addonizio and Sue Palazzo from the Capistrano-Laguna Beach Regional Occupational Program Board.

Gary Pritchard said he raised the subject because he believes there are “stronger leaders on the board that would serve better.” He suggested Trustees John Alpay, a corporate attorney for Oakley in Foothill Ranch, and Lynn Hatton, who owns an educational services company,  as replacements. The vote passed, 4-2-1, with Addonizio and Palazzo dissenting and Trustee Anna Bryson abstaining.

The ROP provides classes in various trades for students ages 16 and older. The district's high schools offer many ROP programs, such as the Automotive Technology Partnership Academy at . Up until Wednesday tonight, Palazzo was president of the board.

“I have put a lot of time and energy into the ROP,” Palazzo said. “I’m concerned you would want to remove me at this time as president of the ROP [board].”

After the meeting, Addonizio said the board’s action was “heartbreaking.” Serving on the ROP is a joy, she said.

“I’m just disappointed at the mean-spiritedness,” she said.

The meeting started with Trustee Lynn Hatton calling for the board to “band together” and work for the common goal of preparing students for their chosen next step.

“I will no longer allow our time and focus to be hijacked away from the task at hand. I will no longer allow misguided, misplaced and imprudent actions and remarks weigh down our progress,” Hatton said emphatically.

The main topic for the meeting was the role of board members, their responsibilities, communication, protocol and procedures as they interact with each other and staffers. Pritchard brought the subject before the board to answer the basic question: “How do we act?”

Just last week, at another special meeting, Addonizio and Palazzo  in a vote to .

Most of the discussion Wednesday was congenial, with board members offering many suggestions to strengthen a resolution that delineates the trustees’ responsibilities.

Bryson said the board president should act as an orchestra’s conductor to create harmony. The board needs to be “brought together to create music versus a cacophony of differing viewpoints.”

Pritchard, a jazz pianist, said he appreciated the analogy.  

The board also discussed changing its meeting schedule. The next regularly scheduled meeting was moved to Monday, April 11. At that meeting, the board will consider adopting a new meeting schedule. The new schedule is likely to have the first meeting of the month be on a Monday and the second on a Wednesday. The only question is whether those meetings will fall on the first and third weeks of the month or the second and fourth weeks of the month.

Pritchard, who runs the meetings for President Jack Brick, has trouble with Tuesdays, and Alpay said broadened responsibilities at his work will have him traveling more during the workweek.

Since December, the board has been meeting once a month on the second Tuesday but has also needed additional, special meetings every month.