Salem-Keizer School Board Meetings go to Zoom Because of the Adults?
Superintendent Perry swears her personal investigation force found them doing nothing wrong!
Salem-Keizer Schools Superintendent Christy Perry sent out a “Message to the Community” today to point the finger for the security failures at the two, count ‘em TWO public school board meetings since resuming in-person meetings at the “disruptive behavior by adults.”
No, I’m not kidding. Anyone who has watched the KGW story or read the write-ups that I have published, and that’s been quite a lot of you, knows full well that the disruptive behavior has not been the “adults” in the room. Unless she’s admitting that LUS is not a youth-lead organization, and is, in fact, just a bunch of adults impersonating students, but I highly doubt that.
Read the message for yourself:
Dear Salem-Keizer Community,
Over the last several years, division has been escalating in school board meetings, not only in ours, but across the country as well. This has resulted in our school board attempting multiple strategies to manage meeting behavior and public comment.
I have watched the school board attempt to have open and inclusive meetings, but these efforts have been met with a steady escalation of disruptive behavior by adults, which is not the model we want for our students. At one time the escalation required us to go back to virtual meetings. As we transitioned back to in-person meetings, the escalation intensified to threats and potential safety issues online and in our meetings. This is unacceptable and is occurring from adults all along the political and ideological spectrum. Ugly behavior by adults in a school board meeting, or outside of it, is simply not okay, especially when there are threats of harm to people in our community. We have student advisors to the board and other youth who participate in our meetings who should be afforded a safe and welcoming, positive meeting environment, as should parents, staff, board members, and all who attend our meetings.
The district’s Safety and Risk Management Services conducted a thorough investigation of the events from the last board meeting. The results of that investigation have made it clear that adults from differing ideologies engaged in negative, aggressive, and unacceptable behavior, knowing it would result in conflict, and that the youth who were present did not initiate any conflict. It is also clear that public comment has become a public forum for political agendas, rather than a way for the board to hear concerns, constructive criticism, ideas and information. It has continually escalated into threats and disrupted meetings.
For the immediate future, with the guidance of Safety and Risk Management Services and per administrative policy ADM-A012 “in order to prevent further harm against those persons impacted…,” the board meetings be conducted as follows:
Board meetings will be closed to in-person attendance for the public, but will be open to the public through online access as listed on the agenda and district website.
Public comment will be accepted in written form or by call-in or Zoom participation. Should behaviors escalate online, the board may restrict public comment to written form only for future meetings. Public comment sign up will open on Friday before the board meeting when the agenda is posted and will close at 3 p.m. the following Monday.
No public will be allowed to congregate in the parking lot of our school buildings or on school grounds during board meetings.
I know as a community we want strong role models for our students – this means we must not tolerate unacceptable behavior from adults. Our students, including those youth serving as advisors and participating in our board meetings, deserve better from us and from the adults in our community.
As we navigate getting back to school, we have much work to do and are committed to doing that work. I’m hopeful our community will find common ground for the sake of our students.
Superintendent Perry
She blames the adults a total of six times throughout the message. And never once points any blame at the activist children who have been disrupting the board meetings for years. I’ve witnessed it personally myself many times. The only ray of sunshine is that she carves out that parents deserve a safe environment, along with “staff, board members, and all who attend board meetings.” That’s all they’ve been asking for: a safe environment.
I am calling for an investigation by an outside organization into the real facts of the situation. It’s clear they cannot be trusted. I would urge all parents and community members to also write in or sign up for public testimony (closes at 3 pm Monday 9/12/2022) and call for an independent investigation into the matter. Make Perry prove the facts of her findings. We cannot simply take her at her word.
She says all this as if the board didn’t create their own policies to govern the behavior that is allowed at the board meetings but then subsequently held no one to account for breaking those policies. You can see the changes to the policy governing public comment by looking at the initial reading of the policy (in April - starting on page 65) that was then passed in May.
They created this policy themselves. They can only blame themselves for CREATING the policy, and then not ENFORCING the policy. You don’t get to abandon your duties and then point the finger at the “adults”. Just listen again to another citizen’s account of what happened to them at the August 9th school board meeting and tell me it’s the “adults” engaging in this behavior.
Shame on you Superintendent Perry. You should let her know by emailing her at Perry_Christy@salkeiz.k12.or.us. Or you can tweet at her @SKCPeezy, but be nice.
Please, please, please, go check out the recall of Directors Avila, Carson-Cottingham, and Guzman-Ortiz. The school board will soon be picking the replacement for the sorry excuse of a Superintendent we’ve had in Christy Perry. These three board directors are feckless, weak, and self-absorbed. We need new board directors that are seeking to put the children first. Go check out Salem-Keizer Education First and donate, volunteer, and find out how to sign the petitions to recall these three.