Locke liberated from "The Dot": An inside job?

In a thoroughly interesting article in the LA Times on Saturday, (reg required but worth it) it was reported that 17 of the 41 teachers who signed the Greed Dot (sorry, typo there) I mean Green Dot petition unsigned their names. This would bring the number of signatures to less than half of the total of 73 tenured teachers. There have been meetings since then with union and district people; it would be interesting to hear from people who teach there to explain what's really going on at Locke.

I'm sure that in these meetings there was some serious "soul-searching" going on when it came to the teachers that had signed it. District folks offered more autonomy, reforms and an apple per day for the rest of their life. (Okay, that last one was made up by me.) I guarantee you this situation did allow UTLA and the LAUSD to work hand in hand on something. There were also some comments made in the article about how the district folks reminded the teachers that they weren't guaranteed a job with Green Dot, that they'd have to reapply for their jobs with GD, and they weren't as well-benefitted as the UTLA jobs. I'm sure this scared the bejeezus outta those teachers. Some teachers said they just signed it to get the attention of the district (Locke is really in quite bad shape) and said they never wanted to be part of Green Dot.

This brings me to my completely off the wall theory, the "gunman on the grassy green dot knoll". What if the signature gathering petition was an inside job by the teachers to bring attention to their school? It's a school that is in sore need of help-- the dropout rate is staggering and their test scores are low. So, to get attention they allow an administrator to "lead" or initiate the petition gathering and make sure that he becomes the patsy and take the fall from the district for the secession movement (he is currently removed from his position, sure to be fired at some point). Then a portion of the same teachers who signed the petition rescind their signatures (only a handful, enough to bring it below half of the tenured teachers) to make it seem as if a sizeable number of educators are still fence-sitting. This recenscion only happens after the district comes to them, hat in hand offering autonomy and reforms...and they mean it this time.

Oh well, it's only a theory.