Farewell and Adieu

Claremont Unified School District said goodbye to CUSD Superintendent David Cash (left) this past Thursday. Wes Woods II covered the fête in in the Daily Bulletin.

Cash, swapping one alluvial fan for another, heads off to the Fresno suburb of Clovis ("Gateway to the Sierras") in the San Joaquin Valley. We wish him the best of luck in his new district when he begins there on July 1.

The Bulletin article said most of the attendees at Cash's farewell party spoke highly of him. However, as any Insider would know, there's always a Debbie Downer in the crowd:

Suzanne Miller, president of the Claremont Faculty Association, was reserved with her comments.

"We're not sad he's leaving," Miller said. "He gives the illusion of transparency, but it's not."

For example, the association found out through a newspaper report earlier this year that K-3 classes would have an increased student to teacher ratio of 24 to one, she said.

"It was not told to us," Miller said.

Get Me Outta Here! Says CSUD's Cash

The Fresno Bee reports that Claremont Unified School District Superintendent David Cash has been hired in the same capacity by the Clovis Unified School District.

In making his job switch, Cash is moving up in the education world, going from CUSD's enrollment of about 7,000 to Clovis' 37,000. And the change probably can't come soon enough for Cash, who's unlikely to face such things as Claremont's Pilgrim Wars in the Fresno suburbs. The Tule fog and summer Central Valley heat will probably come as a welcome change after the silliness of Our Fair City. Compared to Claremont's odd community, the Fresno weather at least possesses a simple kind of purity.

Cash's appointment was announced Wednesday at the Clovis School Board meeting, the Bee's article said:

During Wednesday's meeting, Cash spoke to an audience of about 150 district staff and pledged to be "a dependable and committed keeper of Clovis traditions."

After a standing ovation, he greeted many in a receiving line.

[Clovis school board president Sandra] Bengel said that when she visited Claremont on Tuesday, she was impressed with the way people felt about Cash.

"He is a very humble man and doesn't say a lot about what he's done," she said.

We don't know how Clovis' district is faring in the face of the state's education budget cutbacks, but we suspect it's probably in better shape than our own CUSD, and the school-age demographic in Clovis is almost certainly in better long-term shape than the graying City of Trees and Ph.D's.

One word of warning to Cash: Those Clovis sports parents obsess over their kids' sports with a rabid fervor that will make Claremont's baseball boosters look absolutely sedate.

The Claremont Courier's Tony Krickl wrote about Cash's appointment on the Courier City Beat blog. Krickl says the Courier will probably cover the the Cash news in more depth Saturday.