The State of Things
I ran for school board because, despite being a taxpaying parent of young kids attending PV schools, my concerns and needs were not only ignored but openly mocked by our district’s leaders. I wanted to increase transparency and restore trust. I wanted to actually put kids first. I have failed. I remain an outsider.
What I have witnessed over the last nine months has shown me that public education in California is in a state of crisis. California politicians have abandoned excellence in favor of ideology. Multiple bills are currently pending to accomplish a political agenda that aims to eliminate parents from the conversation, including criminalizing speech critical of school board members.
Public officials have a broad fiduciary duty to carry out their responsibilities in a manner that is faithful to the public trust that has been reposed in them. I speak about this often, and have written about it multiple times. This duty is not to a small group of people who backed a campaign, or to a political party, but to the public at large. Our district is not acting in a manner faithful to the public trust.
In the interest of transparency, I am sharing a few items of importance that I believe the public needs to know and understand. I could write a novel, but I will start here.
Conflict of Interest
After Dr. Cherniss left, the district moved very quickly to replace him. I pushed for a transparent public process.
On April 25, 2023, the board received an email that said:
“Update, per legal counsel, we do not need a Special meeting on Thursday for the Supt search, as we are already under contract with AALRR.”
In other words, we were told no meeting was necessary to approve an agreement with search firm ESS because the district is already under contract with Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo (“AALRR”), and ESS is a subdivision of AALRR. The fact that ESS is a subdivision of AALRR is in the ESS logo, and advertised on their website and in their proposal.
We proceeded with a special meeting May 2, 2023, to discuss appointment of ESS. I told the Board I wanted to conduct an RFP, or “Request for Proposals,” in order to ensure transparency and to bring in the most qualified search firm at the best rate for our district. A fellow board member responded that such a process would be “performative.” I noted my concerns about the apparent conflict of interest in having a subdivision of our law firm conducting this search. I was told by fellow board members there was no conflict. I then voted against the contract with ESS due to my concerns about lack of transparency and apparent conflict of interest. It was a 4-1 vote, as has become the pattern.
Loyalty and independent judgment are essential elements in a lawyer's relationship to a client. My primary concerns with respect to having a subdivision of our law firm handle the search include: (1) the district’s law firm should have no competing duty of loyalty - they must provide the best advice to the district to ensure the district’s best interests are pursued, instead of a competing interest in generating income for a business deal, (2) if AALRR is placing administrators in districts throughout the state, those administrators will remain loyal to AALRR and possibly overlook problems in order to remain in their good graces and on a roster for the next bigger/better opportunity. This means administrators may be less willing to push back against acts and advice that may not serve the district’s best interest, and administrators may be less likely to seek alternative counsel for their district.
These concerns could have been addressed had AALRR engaged in dialogue with me about them. Instead, when I raised concerns I was cut out of the conversation. This has also become the pattern.
There are a number of issues that arose during the search process that are so disturbing and upsetting to me that I will not repeat them here. Behavior displayed during the search process has made me lose any faith I had in a fair and transparent system with our kids’ best interests in mind.
The District Keeps Secrets About Children from their Parents
In June, I received a copy of a document produced by our district in response to a Public Records Act request. The document, called “Confidential Student Support Plan,” includes a number of items for discussion between district employees and a child regarding the child’s gender identity. One of the items is a checkbox to indicate whether a parent/guardian is aware of the changes to the child’s name and pronouns.
As soon as I received the document, I contacted our entire cabinet and interim superintendent to figure out how it’s used and where it came from. Dr. Gotanda, who has since departed to another district, responded that this was her department.
During my meeting with her to discuss the document, I was informed that parents are not notified when a child is counseled by our district (usually principal or school counselor) for gender transition. I was told this secret-keeping between district-employed adults and children is due to “the child’s civil rights.”
I was told there is no written policy for creation or implementation of this confidential document, and it was not board-approved. It was apparently created and implemented by district employees in concert with the district’s lawyers.
I expressed my concerns about the pattern I am seeing in the district regarding these issues. We still have a small handful of teachers telling elementary-aged children that boys can become girls, girls can become boys, and so on. Our CHYA curriculum teaches the same. We are paying for on-campus mental health professionals who are not required to notify parents or obtain consent when they meet with a child (despite my insistence and efforts to include this provision in the contract with SAGE). And now we have this confidential document showing the district is guiding children through gender transition without their parents knowing.
There are a number of critical reasons parents need to be informed when this happens. Primarily, gender transition is a medicalized process involving medications and procedures that can cause serious, irreversible harm. Children suffering from gender dysphoria often have significant comorbidities that a parent needs to be aware of in order to support that child and protect them from abuse and self-harm. As I stated in great detail here, there is a social contagion effect with gender transition, and studies show that only 12% to 27% of cases of childhood gender dysphoria persist into adulthood. It is criminal for any adult to guide a child down a path of irreversible procedures for something that will go away on its own, especially if that adult is not informing the child’s parents about what is happening. To understand how this ideology harms kids, please watch this clip.
I tried to resolve this problematic secret policy without making a public spectacle, but I have gotten nowhere. My hope was to avoid a public culture war situation like we are seeing in other areas of the state. But, my keeping quiet about this does not serve anyone, and it puts children at risk.
There are a number of reasons why adults should not be allowed to keep secrets with your children (and by the way, the secret gender document and discussions violate actual written Board policy). When I was growing up, we were told that any adult who wanted us to keep secrets from our parents was a dangerous person. Somehow, portions of society have abandoned common sense and the instinct to protect children in order to fulfill ideological goals. This does not make secret keeping OK.
While I was working through this issue with the district, a colleague sent me a copy of a lawsuit filed against the district detailing heinous sexual assault allegations against a teacher made by five women who attended PV schools in the 1970s and 1980s. I cannot comment on active litigation, but this is just another example in a very long list of examples in our district showing that we need to teach our kids that no adult should ever be keeping secrets with them, especially about sex and gender. The district should not endorse or support any adult in its employ having sensitive discussions with children without their parent’s involvement and consent.
What Can We Do?
I have serious concerns about the direction of the district, not just because of what I’ve written here, but because we are lacking in serious people with executive, financial and legal experience who exercise prudent judgment when it comes to managing a $150 million budget. Please, if you have any time, read agendas, submit comments, appear in person, and email your board members. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done, and the only way to achieve true transparency and restore public trust is by holding people accountable. I cannot do it alone. Toxic positivity and happy talkers will talk us right off a cliff.
