Dissatisfied with school district decisions

In the misery likes company department, I was so pleased to read Mr. Kessler's letter ("Not pleased with existing school standards in CVUSD," Thousand Oaks Acorn, April 5).

Being ignored, taking no responsibilities and a lack of concern for the student's achievements are things I have witnessed in dealing with the school district. Mr. Kessler is right--the emotions dealing with school administrators and the CVUSD is comic and tragic.

My oldest child is a seventh-grader at Sycamore Canyon Middle School. He wanted a challenge to achieve more, to be in honors classes for math, English and social studies. We applied in the summer before the school year for these classes and were denied.

We petitioned the school again, and he was allowed in the English and social studies honors classes but not the math honors.

I contacted the school administrators and had to write a formal petition for the math honors, which was denied again. I contacted the CVUSD offices, director of secondary instruction Max Beaman, director of elementary instruction Linda Peralta and Superintendent Mario Contini, some of the nicest people who couldn't make any decisions, a total waste of my time.

I guess allowing students to achieve more isn't a priority in the district offices.

So I thought an e-mail to all the CVUSD school board members would be in order to air my concerns, in which I was ignored by all of them but Mike Dunn.

Mr. Dunn understood about allowing a student to achieve more, to push themselves and not have the school system cut off their pathway for success. When Superintendent Contini found out that Mr. Dunn was trying to look into our situation, Mike Dunn was criticized by Superintendent Contini and nothing was done.

The district ended up telling my son "Better luck next year" concerning honors class for math. He has now received A's in both his English and social studies honors classes, in which he was originally denied, as well as an A in his math college prep class.

In his math class, he's not challenged, doesn't need to apply himself at all and is bored. That's the CVUSD way--excellence in mediocrity.
Brett Ebner Thousand Oaks