Students Rally to Keep Administrator

Nearly 200 supporters of a Thousand Oaks High School assistant principal rallied outside a meeting of the Conejo Valley school board Thursday evening, hoping to prevent a favorite administrator from being transferred to rival Westlake High School.

“She’s the best. She’s everybody’s friend,” said junior Ryan Lane, 17, of Assistant Principal Anna Merriman. “She doesn’t want to leave. She came in crying one morning.”

Merriman has been at Thousand Oaks High School for nine years. Conejo Valley Unified School District officials said they do not publicly discuss personnel matters.

The Thousand Oaks High School students took numerous signs in support of Merriman to Thursday’s meeting.

Merriman is to be transferred to Westlake in exchange for Westlake Assistant Principal James Martin, who also serves as the school’s athletic director.

Also at the meeting, Westlake High School student board representative Scott Nussbaum read a letter from the school’s student government asking the board to reconsider Martin’s transfer. The letter cited Martin’s work in building the school’s new football stadium and said that he should be allowed to stay at the school to see the stadium used for the first time in the fall.

“This decision has been carefully thought out,” Supt. Jerry C. Gross told the crowd.

He said that such personnel decisions are his responsibility--not the school board’s--because they should not be based on politics. He said, however, that he valued the public’s input on the matter.

Gross said that administrative transfers in general are designed to improve the administration at the receiving school. He called both Martin and Merriman “competent and talented administrative staff members.”