Teachers

* “School Board Delays Pay Raise Talks” (Sept. 30) misrepresented me and my position. I would never say anything to support the bureaucracy’s belief that the way to save our schools is to give principals the power to appoint teachers to grade level or subject matter regardless of senority.

I have come to this position based upon experience. When I graduated from UC Berkeley with honors in U.S. history, my first principal assigned me to teach soccer and English as a second language just because I am fluent in Spanish. It took winning the first U.S. National Academic Decathlon for him to realize that I could truly motivate students in the subject matter I studied and I knew. In the interim, nearly 800 students lost the opportunity to experience my passion for teaching history.

Principals do not uniformly have a clear sense of the content that a teacher must teach. Therefore, experience matters most. Yet, don’t get me wrong again. There are great principals who focus staff on student learning.

DAVID TOKOFSKY

Board Member, LAUSD