DID YOU KNOW? Bonnie Donovan
Christy Lozano’s campaign has shed some light on many of the issues of concern in the Santa Barbara public schools system.
If you want to get a local education, join the audience of the board meetings of the Santa Barbara Unified School District. The board meets at 5:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 720 Santa Barbara St.
Even if the fireworks don’t fly, one is still shocked and saddened by the striking indifference shown by those in charge toward community members who express concern over important educational and fiscal decisions. The SBUSD seems to have forgotten that it serves the very community members who are giving intelligent and carefully researched input on the education of local children. This important commodity, the children, appear to be the pawns in this power struggle of not who knows best but who rules for the education of their future.
If you want to make a difference or voice an opinion, be sure to check the agenda online to read the items, many of which may appear on the Consent Agenda items, which are approved without discussion, unless the public comment form is filled out and handed in before the item. Elementary, of course.
We really wanted to hear about item 10. It’s the memo of understanding between Geraldo Torres and Dos Pueblos High School for social-emotional skill development with life coach sessions. Is this for real? We thought life coaches were the butt of a joke, or a bit in a Judd Apatow Hollywood movie. But our ears really perked up when board Vice President Wendy Sims-Moten recused herself from voting on item 5: approval/ratification of contracts/grants and memorandums of understanding under $10,000 Each is dated June 14, 2022. Contracts under $10,000 do not go out to bid.
Granted, an observer at the school board meetings must sit through an hour of self-congratulations and glad-handing, employee recognitions etc, all while the important issues are decided at the end. Kate Ford even congratulated fellow board member Laura Capps for her election to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. (Remember that Ms. Capps ran unopposed.)
Ms. Capps now plays a part in the shell game that dangerously mimics the way our official decision-makers are installed. What a pity never to know whether one is in place in office because of trust by the public to do the right thing, or just trusted to do what one is told. Time is precious and other than the board members and the employees who will give reports, the audience is in attendance after work, gratis, with an earnest interest in holding those in charge accountable on behalf of educating their children. During this first hour, the board doled out their comments — consisting mostly of repeated legitimate safety concerns after the Uvalde elementary school shooting in Texas and waxing appreciatively of the joys of watching students graduate as they go forward to meet their place in the world. Problem is, far too many of them will graduate without the necessary life skills to carry them into a successful future.
Sadly, this general discussion used up the first hour of the meeting and proved to be banal and inconsequential.
However, when real concerns were brought forth by the community members, they were met with blank stares from the board and brushed aside.
At the meeting, several doctors spoke of the adverse health problems associated with the excessive use of technology on students. They gave each board member the book, “Screen Schooled,” and echoed the concerns of too much internet education. One of these doctors spoke of the benefits endorsed by Techwise SB, a coalition of pediatricians and mental health professionals working to protect children from the pitfalls of technology. She pleaded for concrete plans to meet on these issues, warning that much work needed to be done before the fall school year and that many people were willing to participate in a task force. However, they have heard nothing from the board.
This is the same board who appears unmoved and bored with legitimate issues raised.
One mother of two alerted the board that her daughter, on a school-issued iPad, had accessed a fictional nightmarish and threatening figure, which caused her to be fearful at night. The parents have been given inadequate instruction on how to avoid such accidental encounters on the internet.
The real tour de force, Monie de Wit, spoke several times during public comment on different agenda items. She made an appeal for the board to change the approach from Balanced Literacy based on guessing, to the science of reading, which is based on phonics and more. Used currently are Fountas & Pinnell and Balanced Literacy, which are considered by prominent educators to be the second-worst publishers for reading proficiency. The approach being used today has been deemed socially and emotionally dangerous, as it limits their abilities and they become overwhelmed. It employs pictures and guessing with contextual clues, rather than using phonics and an evidence-based approach.
She said the science of reading is a well-known fact that activates strategic parts of the brain as shown in MRIs.
The right to read is a civil rights movement that is gaining momentum across the country. Literacy is a human right for a reason. Authors to read on this subject are Emily Hanford, Karen Weaver, Eric Adams and David Banks.
But the most illuminating fact emerged during the public hearing on the Local Control Accountability Plan 2022-2023 (Educational Services).
For Santa Barbara, LCAP is a $15 million budget of state funds directed to the most vulnerable students. The more vulnerable students, the more funds for your school district, eh? Besides asking that the LCAP meetings be recorded for public viewing, Ms. de Wit requested that the board refrain from voting on this budget, to hit pause and give the item more reviewing. Ms. de Wit participated in the group, which was only given three hours to discuss this 42-page budget plan. No transparency here in how the money is allocated, as the funds are attributed to goals, not to actual programs or vendors.
The SBUSD listened patiently, then ignored her request to wait and went ahead and voted unanimously to accept. Not one iota of discussion, at least publicly. This was very disappointing, really nothing short of a travesty. This same school board refuses to heed careful and intelligent input while California, over many years, falls into the bottom quarter of the nation’s academic rankings.
Part of the reason that the state, including Santa Barbara, continues to show such dismal outcomes is because the focus has become expensive social and emotional programs, which replaced traditional classroom instruction in the three R’s.
Teachers are not qualified to handle complex things like transitioning, critical race theory or any of the ideologies for which, apparently, there now is unlimited time in schools.
We must not lose sight of the fact that American students rank 25th in education in the world. The United States is seventh in literacy, 27th in math and 22nd in science. Clearly, this indicates some major flaws in the education process. These subjects are the indisputable core of education. And if they aren’t being properly taught, it’s doubtful anything else is being taught well. Except for the social programming that is happening, the outcomes of which none of these educators understand. Read further.
North Korean defector Yeonmi Park said, “This is exactly the dictator’s handbook … it’s Mao’s youth and Kim Il-Sung’s youth. They always go for young children because they have not lived their life enough to … have critical thinking skills.
“Their brains are very plastic, very malleable, and easy to observe information and believe it,” she said. “… they always mobilize the youth. And that is the truth that, as a parent myself, I cannot protect my child right now in America.”
The indoctrination includes tenets such as “white privilege” and “white guilt” and, she said, that is exactly what North Korea promoted in the name of “equity.”
“In America, it’s all about this hierarchy of victimhood. And I see that my son… (is( learning in school, who is privileged, who is guilty,” she said.
Ms. Park added that Ibram X. Kendi’s antiracist socialism, whose concepts are taught in many U.S. schools, terrifies her. She recalls how North Koreans gave up their land and rights for the sake of equality and ended up getting nothing in return.
Is this the direction we want our schools to go? If we don’t put the brakes on this social programming, it will soon be too late, and we will have relinquished all the hard-fought freedoms we have enjoyed for more than 200 years — under the false guise of equity.
