So, in the end, the Eastside community was right about Ruben Zacarias and I was wrong. All I can say now is that I‘m sorry.Last year, it seemed time for Zacarias to quit. The last of the old-guard Los Angeles Unified School District supers, he made a career of hearing nothing he didn’t want to hear, of doing nothing he didn‘t want to do. While not as deeply dyed as his predecessors in the foul broth of the Belmont scandal, he was tinted by it.And he’s on the record as protecting, and even promoting, some of the most malfeasant members of the Belmont team. So it was tempting to agree, as part of the bureaucratic clean-sweep mandate of the new school board, that Zacarias had to go. Even if he weren‘t so resistant to its new members’ will. That may not have been altogether his fault; it may have been impossible for him, after heading one way in a 33-year LAUSD career, to change direction.
Source: Wanted: Backbone | L.A. Weekly