(StandUpSB video)
In response to Noozhawk’s April 13 article, “Tensions Flare Up as Public Returns to Santa Barbara School Board Meeting,” I’m not sure I understand the reporter’s focus on me and one of the issues I raised during public comment, rather than the actual points I was making.
I spoke on two topics that night. The first was about the rate of local teen suicides and attempts that Noozhawk reported on Feb. 9.
That story, by the same reporter, quoted Santa Barbara Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Frann Wageneck as saying the district had “experienced 56 ‘suicide incidences’” in just the first semester of the 2021-2022 school year.
To put that in context, in the 2017-2018 school year the district reported 70 suicide “incidences” for the entire year, versus 56 in one semester alone this year.
Noting there were “86 crises in 90 days” and that nearly 700 students were referred to on-campus or off-campus counseling, Wageneck acknowledged, “We have a public health crisis in our community.”
These are life and death issues affecting our children.
The reporter, however, apparently did not consider parents’ concerns over teen suicide incidences and their causes as worthy of even a mention in his 900-word story, while making sure to point out that I had previously run for public office, including the school board.
(StandUpSB video)
At the same April 12 school board meeting, the district disclosed that there had been 12 race-related incidents reported in a three-week period.
“This country for many years has not wanted to deal with this,” the reporter quoted school board vice president Wendy Sims-Moten as saying. “If we don’t want to continue to repeat history, or being circular on it, then now is the time to talk.”
But the reporter failed to mention that for two decades the district has been paying Just Communities Central Coast more than $1 million over the years for ethnic studies on our campuses. Does Sims-Moten mean that Just Communities’ policies and ethnic training is a failure?
The reporter further stated, “Throughout the pandemic, a consistently vocal group of parents and activists regularly blasted the board members through Zoom about the COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates.”
Parents have been upset about COVID-19 policies because the SBUSD school board and administration have admitted to using CNN articles and opinion pieces in making their COVID-19 policies — not science and data.
To date, the district has ignored numerous requests to produce any data supporting its positions and policies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Food & Drug Administration. Why not? Has the Noozhawk reporter asked the district about that?
A local emergency room doctor spoke at that last school board meeting stating that no children had been admitted to the hospital in two years as a result of COVID-19 and that there are no coronavirus-related deaths of otherwise healthy children.
And yet there’s an ongoing suicide crisis in our schools. Has the reporter conducted any follow-up reporting since his Feb. 9 article?
The reporter did reiterate the failing academics of this district, which have been an issue long before COVID-19.
“According to STAR testing in the winter, that about 80% of white students in grades three through six met or exceeded reading standards for their grade,” he wrote. “About 79% of Asians in those grades met or exceeded the standard, while only 35% of Latino students met or exceeded the standard and 22% of black students met the reading standard.”
And that “619 students, as of April 7, have been considered ‘emergent language learners’ for at least six years. Board member Virginia Alvarez asked why there were so many students who were still learning English after six years.”
California is dead last in the United States for academics despite having one of the largest economies in the world. How does that happen? And why is it that only seven out of 10 Hispanic children can perform at grade level after decades under this regime?
Why is it that the news media bash parents who are concerned about failing academics, rising teen suicides and racial injustices, but rarely hold those actually responsible to anything close to accountability?
It’s a shame that when school board members are asked about their accomplishments, there is never any mention of academics. As the district’s dismal student test results show, it’s because this board and administration have a failing grade. Instead they highlight that they’re “going solar” and that they built a $39 million football stadium at one high school.
The reporter is correct in his opening line, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
And I do agree with Superintendent Hilda Maldonado when she responded “that there needs to be a change.” Do you believe there needs to be a change in our school district?
— Brian Campbell is a Santa Barbara Unified School District parent. The opinions expressed are his own.
