The Los Altos School District Superintendent interfered in the coming Los Altos School Board election and she ought to resign immediately.

To the Los Altos School Board:

The outrageous behavior of Ms. Marge Gratiot, the Superintendent of Schools of Los Altos, California, has recently been revealed and discussed in the San Jose Mercury News in the last week or so. In a nutshell, this school Superintendent interfered in the coming Los Altos School Board election by calling one of the candidates and suggesting that his running would cost the School District some $30,000 and thus might harm some school programs. Los Altos, which is one of the wealthiest districts in Northern California, has long been a bastion of civic conservatism. But this move to eliminate the need for an election and its cost by browbeating a student, an 18-year-old candidate, Kevin Bella, into not running and thus nullifying the need for an election by leaving two candidates for two available seats is truly un-American and undemocratic.

This woman and her totalitarian attitudes have no place in our American educational system. If she is unwilling to resign from her position as school superintendent, then the Los Altos School Board ought to fire her. We have enough trouble maintaining a functioning democracy in this country without this absurd interference in an election.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

17 August 2003