San Marcos Fallout

Though I write from the state of Washington, I am a product of the Santa Barbara public school system from elementary through high school and City College, ultimately graduating from UC Berkeley. My three children are also products of public schools. My wife, two of my children, and I graduated from San Marcos High School; my oldest daughter graduated from Santa Barbara High. My in-laws were Dons. My youngest daughter was a varsity coach for several years at San Marcos. I have two grandchildren who are future Royals.

I am a past board member of the Santa Barbara Education Foundation, and I have given very generously to both San Marcos’s Royal Pride Foundation and Santa Barbara’s Dons foundation.

I am very distressed at the idea that Principal Ed Behrens of San Marcos might be demoted.

I have witnessed throughout his tenure the impressive gains San Marcos has made in its physical, cultural, and academic stature. I believe that in the almost 50 years that I have observed, San Marcos is in the best place it has ever been. In my opinion, this is a direct reflection on the quality of leadership provided by Ed Behrens.

I implore the school district and board to examine his whole body of work and the respect he has in our community before judging him on a very complicated and difficult set of circumstances or event that no one in America has yet to figure out. Please do not punish our community for the sake of political scapegoating and expediency. I expect a more measured and collaborative response than what is apparently being considered.