This is what I believe.
Every life is valuable, and every person deserves respect. No one fully knows the pain of others, but we all recognize that life contains pain and uncertainty. Suicide is not funny. It is a tragedy for all concerned and everyone who is touched by it deserves empathy and understanding. Everyone should be called by the pronoun of their choice without question, ridicule, or judgement. This is unequivocally what I believe, and no one should say otherwise.
Last Thursday night, about thirty people came to the Board Meeting because they feel I don’t believe these things, but they are wrong. Let me repeat that. They are wrong.
I first became aware that something was unusual when there were more people than I expected in the audience and noticed that some of them had signs and posters. President Muir was also surprised. Trustee Katrina Young, however, came prepared with a sign she created showing her pronouns.
As we started to take public comments it became clear that this orchestrated attack was an attempt to both pressure me into resigning and close down the SDUHSD Families for Students First Facebook Group.
Several speakers accused me of being transphobic. One person called me a Nazi. One threatened me physically, and said he “knows people” who will come and get me. That individual repeated his threat directly to me at the Board dais as President Muir was forced to call for a recess to regain order.
What did they accuse me of? Using online “laugh” emojis in response to a comment where someone said “I do have an issue with the furry thing. If my son said he identified as a cat and needed to defecate in a litter box I would probably take him to the humane society and let him make a real decision.”
Let me explain.
A parent posted in the Facebook group that, apparently, their child was told that they need to use the pronoun “They” and will get into trouble if they ask to be called the pronoun of their choice.
I understand concerns over the use of pronouns, but there are some things that we need to understand about how this affects our district. Our school community is required to use the pronoun of the student’s choice, both by law and by Board Policy. No one can require a student to go by the pronoun “they” unless that is what they wish. It is the student who chooses their pronoun, not anyone from the administration. We must respect the ability of transgender students, and all students, to pick their own pronouns.
The parent said she emailed the principal and was awaiting a reply. I asked her to please send me her email and any reply she may receive. As it turns out, it was a misunderstanding and everyone may use the pronoun of their choice.
This post (since taken down by the administrators of the site) started a thread of comments. As you might expect, the thread went in different directions as many people weighed in.
One person stated that “This makes no sense I thought the whole point was that people were supposed to be called what they wanted.” Another said “They can’t force people to address people by a different pronoun. What if a person is offended by being called “they”? Like what if they have a different pronoun? It’s unbelievable. Where is the pronoun choice?”
There was a lot of back and forth, with people mostly being reasonable in their comments.
At one point an individual made the comment about the cat and the litter box, that I thought was funny. I replied to that post “[laughing emojis] Too much! [more laughing emojis]”.
Then, as things often do in social media, there was a comment that became an issue. The same individual who made the “cat” comment also posted a comment that mentioned suicide and said some things that most would find offensive. I know that the administrators of the Group let a lot of comments stay in the spirit of free speech and encouraging a healthy discussion, but they will take down posts or comments that in their judgement go too far. When I read that post I thought it was inappropriate and should be taken down. I sent some of the administrators a text asking them to remove the post, and within minutes they reviewed it and took it down.
I also removed my comment with the laughing emojis. The guy didn’t strike me as funny any more.
So, I reported a comment as inappropriate, it was reviewed by the administrators of the Group who used their judgment and removed it. Then the administrators closed all the comments.
But some people thought they had a “gotcha” moment. They decided to attribute my “Too much” laughing comment not to the absurdity of a dad calling out his kid who wants to be a cat, but to the suicide comment. They could then make the story “Allman supports suicide for transgender students”.
Except the comment about suicide came after the laughing emojis comment. How can I laugh about suicide if that comment came after the first comment? And who laughs about suicide? I was the one who reported the comment as inappropriate. To now make the accusation that I would laugh about suicide is just outrageous and is a lie.
Was this really about the real and undeniable issue of the safety and well-being of transgender students or recognizing people by their preferred pronouns?
I listened to comment after comment and it got pretty nasty. Nazi. Personal threats of violence. Lots of name calling. Yelling.
After one of the public commenters made some incorrect remarks, I tried to take the opportunity to make a brief comment in reply, as is the right of a board member, but I was shouted down by the audience. They were yelling and screaming, shouting over me, and wouldn’t let me speak.
Eventually I was able to speak for about 30 seconds. In that time, I briefly showed a screenshot of the text I sent to the Admin asking her to take down the offensive comment, and her reply that it was done. I also briefly showed a Word doc I created for myself after reflecting on the pronoun issue. It wasn’t a proposal or resolution, or anything that I planned to show or ask anyone to vote on. It was to organize my own thoughts. I believed it was worth showing at that moment so the people in the audience and online could see my own words about what I believe, and not the accusations of others about what they think I believe.
Board Member, Katrina Young, shouted “Brown Act Violation, Brown Act Violation, not on the agenda!” as I was trying to speak. Again, this was not a proposal, not a resolution and not something I was asking the board to take action on. Therefore, there is no Brown Act violation, and the intention to silence me without knowing what I was saying was extremely uncivil and disrespectful.
The proper way to handle an offensive comment or post in a Facebook group is to report it immediately to the Admins. When someone takes screenshots of every comment in a post, prints them out, makes some into posters, distributes them on social media with lies overladen on them, encourages others to spread the lies further on social media, and then shows up without warning with 20+ others to yell at a board member, you have to wonder what is really happening?
A caring person who is upset about the treatment of a transgender child or adult would want the comments taken down immediately, not spread throughout the internet. Reasonable, caring people do not amplify a lie that is hurtful to a vulnerable population, unless they have other purposes.
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After the chaos that ensued during the public comment period, you may find it surprising that we turned to district business after the recess, but that is what we did. The main portion of our business meeting went pretty quickly.
New Assistant Principals Named
On the personnel side we appointed to new Assistant Principal for our middle schools. Erica Williams will become Assistant Principal at Earl Warren, and Christopher Greene will become Assistant Principal at Oak Crest Middle School. We wish both the best as they start their new roles.
Approval of Inter-district Transfers
Parents and students can be caught in a couple of traps when applying for high school.
For example, consider a student who attends one our high schools as a Freshman and their parents (and the student) move to a neighboring school district. Our policy is to let them finish their existing school year, but then unenroll them and require them to apply as an inter-district transfer for the following year. As a matter of practice, the school would routinely deny these requests, even when we had the capacity at the desired high school and the District would receive additional State funding if we let the student remain in our high school. I didn’t think that is right, and proposed to change the policy so that if we have capacity, and if we receive money for educating the student, then we would allow the student to remain in their school.
My proposal was accepted by Trustee Mo Muir, but not by Trustee Katrina Young. Because there were only three Board Members present and we need three votes to pass any action item, the policy was not changed.
A second “Catch-22” is that the District requires a student to be physically resident in the District when they apply for high school. That means that if a family is moving into our District and wants to apply for high school, they can’t do so except during the high school selection period. Then, when they do move in the summer, they are told they missed the application window.
This does not make sense to me and I think this is fundamentally unfair.
I asked the administration to come back with a proposal for the next meeting that would fix this problem.
SDA Capacity and Enrollment
I want to thank everyone for their suggestions on improving the crowding at SDA.
I visited SDA last week to meet with the new principal and review campus operations. The good news is that Principal Dolnik has been working on this issue and has made substantial improvements. I witnessed the classes change, and yes there is a short “rush” in the hallway as classrooms are emptied, but it is manageable. The teachers have implemented some techniques that help with this and are understanding if students run a minute or two late.
I learned that we should also be able to improve the parking situation by opening up some new spaces as soon as we get the approval from the city. Everything is ready to go as soon as we receive the necessary permits which could be any time. These extra parking spaces are much needed.
I also passed along a number of suggestions from the parents in this group. Thank you so much for your input. They will all be considered, and some will have an impact. I want to thank Principal Dolnick for her efforts in this area.
Finally, I reviewed the longer-term outlook for SDA and the potential need for a lottery. Based on data and projections from our elementary schools and forecasted changes in demographics in our community, I believe we will have approximately 100-150 fewer students at SDA next year, and another +/- 100 fewer in the following year, even if we do not run a lottery and we accept every student’s first choice of school. This is not a guarantee that there won’t be a lottery, but projections point in that direction. On top of that, I hear that Principal Justin Conn is off to a great start at LCC, and with come concerted and focused efforts I expect that more students may choose LCC in the next two years.
The bottom line is that this should be the peak enrollment year at SDA for the foreseeable future. If enrollment falls as is predicted, we won’t need to change the enrollment process and everyone can attend the school of their choice. This will be a win-win for everyone.
Prevention of Gun Violence Resolution
Two students, Shane and Andrew Baum, brought forward a resolution denouncing gun violence. After some discussion and changes to specific language, the resolution was adopted by unanimous vote. Our discussion and back and forth in the board meeting with Shane and Andrew was enjoyable. These two young men are wonderful examples of engaged, caring and bright students. I applaud their interest in civics, government, and important issues in our world