Recently, school boards all across America have been the focus of various groups with their own agendas. The focus has shifted from being a body overseeing and protecting students’ interests to being a group that responds to partisan politics.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/29/republicans-education-wars-school-board-races-526053
In Calaveras, we’ve recently had school boards vote against enforcing State vaccine mandates.
http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/news/article_4a0a8a8e-4253-11ec-be8f-f3eae7a1eff6.html
This has potentially opened up those school districts to fines from the State. These are fines that we can’t afford.
Elsewhere in the country, school boards have become the means to control what’s taught (or not) in the classrooms and even to ban books.
The California School Board Association states:
Citizen oversight of local government is the cornerstone of democracy in the United States. School board members are locally elected public officials entrusted with governing a community’s public schools. The role of the school board is to ensure that school districts are responsive to the values, beliefs, and priorities of their communities. Boards fulfill this role by performing five major responsibilities:
- Setting direction
- Establishing an effective and efficient structure
- Providing support
- Ensuring accountability
- Providing community leadership as advocates for children, the school district and public schools
These five responsibilities represent core functions that are so fundamental to a school system’s accountability to the public that they can only be performed by an elected governing body. Authority is granted to the board as a whole, not each member individually. Therefore, board members fulfill these responsibilities by working together as a governance team with the superintendent to make decisions that will best serve all the students in the community.
We’d like to encourage you to attend your local school board meetings, making sure that all of our community is represented. You might also look into taking a more active role; everything from volunteering to work on a related county committee to becoming a member of a school board.
Here’s a list of our local school boards:
- Calaveras County Office of Education (whole county)
January 31, 4:30 PM, Cheyenne Conference Room, District Office Angels Camp
https://www.ccoe.k12.ca.us/ - Vallecito Union School District (Murphys, Arnold)
Wednesday, January 19, 4:00 PM
District Office unless otherwise noticed. Unless otherwise notified, all meetings are held on the third Wednesday of every month at the District Office. Until further notice, the Open Public Session will commence at 4:00 p.m., and after roll call, public comment on closed session items, and agenda approval the Board President will convene to Closed Session. Open Public Session will re-convene at 5:30 p.m. (Time approximate)
https://www.vallecitok12.com/ - Bret Harte Union High School District (Angels Camp)
Monday, February 14, 5:00 PM, District Office.
Closed session is at 5:00 p.m. except as listed; Public session is at 5:30 p.m
https://bhuhsd-ca.schoolloop.com/ - Calaveras Unified School District (west side of the county)
January 18, 6:00 PM, by remote access only.
https://calaverasusd.com/ - Mark Twain Union Elementary School District (Angels Camp and Copperopolis)
January 13, 7:15 PM, Copperopolis and February 9, 6:30 PM, Angels Camp.
https://www.mtwain.k12.ca.us/
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