Roughly one year after her death, Los Angeles Unified School District board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte was honored by her former colleagues Tuesday with a moment of silence and tributes for her dedication to the district’s children.
LaMotte died Dec. 5, 2013, at age 80 while attending an education conference in San Diego.
“I miss my friend,” board member Steve Zimmer said. “I miss her really room-changing presence. I miss her elegance and her grace, her passion. I miss the care that she showed for me, my family, my clothes — this is a tie that she bought me, because she said, ‘Zimmer, I’m going to need to buy you some ties because yours are looking very raggedy these days.”‘
The tribute during the LAUSD board meeting came just days after the district renamed an elementary school at 4410 Orchard Ave. in South Los Angeles after LaMotte.
“I love that L.A. Unified has recognized Ms. LaMotte in the naming of a school,” board member Monica Garcia said. “That is probably one of the biggest tributes that we can give to an individual. And when I think about Ms. LaMotte, I think about the compassion that she showed me. When I first got elected and it was a turbulent time, she was the only board member who came out and wished me well, and she brought me flowers and a smile and a hug and I appreciated that.
“… She fought for what she believed in,” Garcia said. “It wasn’t up for sale.”
Superintendent Ramon Cortines said LaMotte would have enjoyed the school- renaming ceremony, because it focused on the students.
“It was not an adult recognition,” he said. “Students of that school were the emcees. The students of that school were the performers, the singers, the dancers, and you could see even though she wasn’t there … you could see the smile of Ms. LaMotte, because she was so focused on the importance of schools and children and opportunities for children.
“It was about students. It was a celebration of her life through students,” Cortines said.
LaMotte was a teacher, administrator, principal and counselor at Los Angeles-area schools during a career dating back to 1973.
She was elected to the board in 2003 and re-elected in 2007 and 2011. LaMotte taught at Drew Junior High School, then moved to Edison Junior High School as head counselor. She was an assistant principal at Francis Polytechnic High School and became principal of Horace Mann Junior High School in 1984.
In 1988, she was named director of secondary instruction for one of the district’s regions, and was later promoted to region administrator of operations.
After two years as an administrator, LaMotte said she wanted to return to a school-level position, so she took over as principal of Washington Preparatory High School in 1991.
When she was just 18 years old, she was appointed director of Spaulding Business College in Baton Rouge, La., while simultaneously attending Southern University, from which she earned a bachelor’s degree in education. She earned a master’s degree from Louisiana State University, where she became the first black woman to serve as a visiting professor in the undergraduate School of Education.
She held the District 1 seat on the LAUSD board, representing south and southwest Los Angeles.
— City News Service