After serving as Palisades Charter High School’s executive director since the summer of 2006, Amy Dresser-Held resigned on Monday. Dresser-Held, 34, has accepted an executive director position at a start-up charter school. She told the Palisadian-Post (and the school’s board of directors Tuesday night) that she cannot announce the name of the school at this time. Her last day at PaliHi will be June 30. ’It’s bittersweet because I’m sad to be leaving, but excited about this opportunity,’ Dresser-Held wrote in a letter to the school community. ‘I know the timing is terrible, and I’m committed to doing everything needed to see us through all the challenges we are currently facing.’ As a result of the state’s financial crisis, PaliHi officials are anticipating a budget shortfall of at least $1.1 million in the 2010-11 school year. The school could lose additional revenue if the Los Angeles Unified School District follows through on its proposal to eliminate busing for nearly half of PaliHi’s student population (1,180 students). The state gives PaliHi $5,831 per student, and without busing many students could no longer attend. At Tuesday night’s meeting, the board of directors voted unanimously to send out letters to 24 teachers and three administrators, warning them that they could be laid off this summer, pending what happens with busing and the school’s ultimate budget. ’I intend to work tirelessly to ensure our students are able to continue at PaliHi, that we avoid having to lay off staff and that we build and adopt a budget that ensures PaliHi is sustainable into the future,’ Dresser-Held told the Post. PaliHi’s administrative team has experienced considerable turnover in the past few years and the school is currently without a permanent principal. Interim Principal Marcia Haskin came out of retirement last fall to replace Martin Griffin, who suddenly resigned after only one year. This is Haskin’s second time as interim principal at the school; she also served in the 2007-08 school year. On Tuesday, the school board voted 6-1 with one abstention to spend $5,000 on consultants from the UCLA Anderson School of Management to assist the school community with the selection of a principal and/or executive director. The consultants will help decide whether the school would function optimally with both a principal and an executive director or whether those roles should be consolidated. The board had been considering hiring consultants to help with the principal search since last fall. In October, 115 faculty members signed a petition requesting that the board ask Haskin to serve as principal through 2010-2011, so that PaliHi officials could obtain an objective third party to help ‘create an upper management plan, assess our personnel requirements to match this plan, and assist us in our principal hiring process.’ At a meeting on February 16, the board charged Haskin with finding an objective third party. Haskin turned to former PaliHi principal Merle Price, who recommended the consultants at UCLA. On Tuesday, Haskin told the board that she understands it is difficult to spend money on consultants when the school faces a budget deficit, but ‘I think it is critical that we get leadership in here to take this school where it needs to go.’ Haskin explained to the board that the consultants will meet with parents, students and teachers to figure out what the school community wants in their leadership. They will then give school officials the tools they need to find those leaders. During the public comment period at Tuesday’s board meeting, several parents in the audience begged Dresser-Held to stay at PaliHi. The executive director smiled, but said she was committed to leaving. She told the Post earlier that day that the other charter school recruited her for the position, and she liked the idea of working in a start-up environment. ’I think it will be a great opportunity to build an organization that has a vision of growing,’ said Dresser-Held, whose husband, Brian Held, is a teacher and coach at Loyola High School. They have a 22-month-old daughter, Molly, and a 6-month-old son, Dylan. Dresser-Held touted some of PaliHi’s achievements in her letter to the school community. ‘I’m proud of all we have accomplished over the last four years from increasing student achievement, building our financial reserve, increasing demand for admissions ‘ adding classrooms and state-of-the-art athletic facilities.’ Before coming to PaliHi, Dresser-Held worked as a field deputy for LAUSD school board president Caprice Young, as a special assistant for LAUSD Senior Deputy Superintendent Maria Ott, and as a director of policy for LAUSD school board member Marlene Cantor.
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