June 4 Board Meeting Agenda
Congratulations on making it through to the last week of school for PVPUSD. I’m looking forward to attending several graduation ceremonies and kicking off summer break.
The agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting is posted here. There are a number of critical issues to discuss, including a first reading of a resolution ordering a school bond election (Item K1).
Despite community requests and my own written request, discussion of solutions to the publication of a factually devoid, antisemitic article in the PVHS yearbook was not placed on the open session agenda. The issue will be discussed behind closed doors during closed session, and participants in the discussion will be legally prohibited from disclosing what was discussed.
I am opposed to conducting public business this way, and I believe more sunlight is the best solution for every controversy we face. The public deserves to know where their elected officials stand on important issues. Having this item on the open session agenda would have allowed the Board to have an open, public discussion following public comments made by members of the community. Without that, it is difficult to meaningfully incorporate and act on the information shared by members of the community. Further, transparency is key to improving trust.
I am personally embarrassed, ashamed, and frightened that several nakedly partisan and factually incorrect opinion pieces were published in one of our high school yearbooks. Parents should be proud of the education their children receive in our district. The political opinion pieces, however, read as a display of indoctrination students receive from the district. I am concerned that their publication reflects a broader systemic problem of injecting political bias and social justice activism into education. Our job as a school district is to educate children to become productive citizens with a solid baseline understanding of math, English, science, history. If we’re going to inject partisan politics and ideology into it, the least we can do is arm our students with facts, data, and balanced perspectives. Instead, it appears we’ve fed our students harmful and biased propaganda without teaching critical thinking skills.
If you want to participate in tomorrow’s meeting, you can make public comments on closed session agenda items at 4:00 before the closed session, and you can make comments starting at 5:30 on non-agenda items. For general tips on how to address the board, please see a summary I prepared here. For specific technical guidance, please click here. You can also contact the Board and Superintendent directly.
As always, this is one lady’s opinion. I don’t speak for the Board and no one else speaks for me.
