Coffee County Board Of Education

The Education of LAUSD's Steve Zimmer

It’s been dark for almost five hours, the city has slowed, and even the 101 Freeway is sparse and quiet. Steve Zimmer has just wrapped his last appointment, but rushing home seems foolish when a rare sit-down dinner is an option. Most days Zimmer hardly notices how alone he is, because he never stops working.

On this wintry night earlier this year, the then-18-month veteran of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education is coming off a 14-hour day, a zigzag tour of schools from West Hollywood to the Elysian Valley, from parent meetings on the Westside to policy meetings downtown, home to Hollywood to walk his blind Chihuahua-pug mix and is about to wind down — finally — with dinner and a very necessary nightcap in Echo Park. By this point, Zimmer is hungry, tired and melancholy, so once he’s decided upon the kitschy French bistro Taix on Sunset Boulvard, he pops in a Leonard Cohen CD and sinks into the driver’s seat of his LAUSD-owned Prius.

“Hallelujah” ...

“So you know that everybody covers ‘Hallelujah,’ but this version, this live version is just … unbelievable,” he says. “The instrumentation is very different than his studio albums. I didn’t realize how Jewish-influenced his music was until I heard this. It almost has a klezmer-y feel.”

Zimmer moves to another favorite, Beck, whose album “Sea Change” he calls “the breakup album.” “It rips your heart out,” he says, explaining that he listened to it on loop for months after a six-year relationship ended recently. At 41, he has never married, but he says his last breakup felt like a divorce.

“I’ve been good — or at least passable — at a lot of things in my life,” Zimmer tells me. “I haven’t been as good at relationships. An artist can’t help being an artist — in the same sense that I can’t help what I do. It’s a focus thing.

“I don’t know how to do things any other way. It’s a complicated balancing act to have two passions. It takes a very, very special person to be willing to be part of a balancing act.”  

But if Zimmer thinks his schedule reflects any sort of work/life balance whatsoever, he’s either incredibly un-self-aware or in denial. Most days he’s so entrenched — between developing and arguing policy downtown and visiting with parents, students and administrators at any of the 99 school sites in his district, which runs from East Hollywood to the ocean, north to the Valley and south to Westchester (“It’s f—-ing enormous!”) — there really is no distinction between Zimmer’s work life and personal life. Given the constant state of crisis in today’s public schools, every school board member must take the job seriously, but, for Zimmer, it is an up-all-night, high-octane, high-stress, the-world-rests-on-your-shoulders kind of job. He gives it everything, with a self-sacrifice that borders on masochism.

Coffee BOE to discuss redistricting plans | The Enterprise Ledger

     Following approval of a county redistricting plan by Coffee County Commission, pending approval from the Justice Department, the Coffee County Board of Education will meet within the next two weeks to discuss the redistricting plan’s effect on school board members.

     District Four Board member Jimmy Clark said if the commission’s redistricting plans are approved, “I’ll be in District Three.”

     Superintendent Don McPherson said the board could “approve the redistricting plans or not. The bill has not passed the Legislature yet, but we need to have a meeting soon to let County Administrator Kathy Lolley explain the plans to us and what it would cost us to plot our own districts.”

     McPherson said a special-called meeting will probably be held around May 24 or May 25.

     On Tuesday, the school board approved an increase in Child Nutrition Program meal prices.

     “The federal government requires us to make a profit with school lunches and we haven’t been because when I look at the bills, there’s also a fuel surcharge added,” McPherson said. “We’re not making money and we’re required to do so by law.”

     McPherson said he compared other school systems’ cost of lunches “and everyone is having to go up on price. I believe we can manage with an increase of just 25 cents each on a meal for students, faculty, all staff and visitors.”

     With the increase, lunch cost for regular paid student meals will be $2.

     “Forty-four percent of all of our students pay for meals, with 56 percent having free or reduced lunches,” McPherson said “I still believe the school lunchroom is the best deal you can get for a meal.”

     In other business, board members approved a travel expense reimbursement for educators “who have reasonable travel expense,” McPherson said when recommending the action.

     After the meeting, the school board hosted the annual Coffee County Academic/Leadership Awards Ceremony for all three county high schools.

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