A board meeting turns ugly as parents fight to save their principal.

Reporters, in my experience, fall into two different categories: those who loathe covering public meetings, and those who can’t get enough of them. I fall firmly into the latter. Public meetings are for me a mix of live theater and democracy in action, the ultimate chance to see how the sausage is made – and fed – to the public.

It’s why, when my phone started blowing up Monday with messages parents and students were being denied entry to the Salinas City Elementary School District meeting because the room wasn’t big enough to fit them, I canceled my plans (cocktail, carnitas and Giants vs. Mets) and seized the chance to watch a real live violation of California open meetings law.

I got to district headquarters on South Main Street and, sure enough, parents and kids were crowded onto the sidewalk, craning ears toward the door and trying to hear what was going on inside. If you wanted to speak to the board during public comment, you were handed a number and directed to one line to wait to get in. If you wanted to get inside to hear what was going on, you were just out of luck. When one person left, another person was let inside. And so it went for the first two hours of the meeting, as aggrieved parents and students lined up to demand answers as to why beloved Mission Park Elementary School Principal Brinet Greenlee was recommended for demotion. She’s consistently raised the school’s test scores to the highest in that district (although, someone pointed out, the last time around she only raised them by 40-something points instead of the 100-plus of previous years). If you have a sick child or are having issues, she picks up the phone and makes a personal phone call, someone else pointed out. She opened her personnel file to scrutiny and it shows she has never received anything less than satisfactory evaluations – no black marks at all. Word of the possible demotion was given to Greenlee a few weeks ago via the district personnel office, and given to parents with the message, “Trust us.”

People were there, and they wanted answers. After standing through five hours of the meeting, they didn’t get answers. They got disdain. They got a board that – at least during that meeting – appeared to be so badly run and hostile to its parent constituents that the board members of the normally lunatic Alisal Union School District should be standing tall with pride.

They got bad acoustics that made it difficult for people in the back of the overcrowded room to hear. They got ignored when, weeks ago, they told the district they would need a bigger room for this meeting and made a request to move meeting places. They got to wait when, two and a half hours into the meeting, the board went into closed session for about an hour. (Who knows what they discussed, because they didn’t tell anyone or make a post-closed-session report.) They got Trustee Roberto Garcia offering to explain the meaning of the word “copacetic” to them, and they responded to the sarcasm by telling him he was being rude.

And they also got seriously confused messaging: The district at one point said it was pulling the Greenlee item – as well as consideration of other principal demotions and movement – from the agenda. Some people left, believing it would be held until another meeting at a later date.

It was held until later, alright. Until 11:30pm, when on a 3-2 vote, the trustees agreed with the recommendation of Superintendent Juvenal Luza to demote and reassign Greenlee and several other principals.

And in the ultimate “What was he thinking?” moment, they also got Trustee Stephen Kim, usually a pretty measured guy, joining the chat on the 700-plus member Facebook group “Bring Back Brinet” and calling two of the most vocal parents mean-spirited. He topped that nugget off with, “Screw the both of you, arrogant bullies. That’s right, the both of you.”

The next morning, a regret-filled Kim told me hitting that “post” button was a childish and immature act, and he was sorry.

Hopefully, the rest of the trustees join him in that moment of humility. I probably don’t need to point out that 700 parents organized on Facebook are organized enough to vote the trustees out of office, too.

Mary Duan is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan