We wish to speak to the board’s new policy regarding agendizing items
submitted by community members. We believe this policy violates the Brown Act,
by imposing additional requirements on citizens not contemplated by that Act and
actually discourages participation by the community.
As well, based upon ASK’s recent request to be placed on the November 15th
agenda, we believe the board’s implementation of this policy is subjective,
for it favors those with whom the board and the superintendent agree by placing
them on the agenda, while disfavoring those with whom they do not agree, by
refusing them access to the agenda. We feel this practice not only violates your
policy, it also violates First Amendment rights of members of the community, as
well as the spirit and intent of the Brown Act. Therefore, we believe this new
policy needs to be rescinded.
On Tuesday, November 7th, ASK sent Nancy Bogart a letter which included our
request to be placed on the November 15th agenda. Our purpose was to take three
minutes on the agenda just as your policy contemplates to "ask for the
opportunity" to make a presentation at a later date about the philosophy of
inclusion and how it relates to our own school district’s Mission and Vision
Statements. Our November 7th letter complied with the Board’s new policy.
Contrary to what Mrs. Campbell stated at the November 15th meeting, we did
not ask for 15-20 minutes on the November 15th agenda. As our letter makes
clear, we were asking for the three minutes your policy allows, so that we could
formally request your consideration of a presentation.
On Wednesday, November 8th Mrs. Bogart called me and informed me that Mrs.
Campbell and Superintendent Davis had decided that before we could be agendized,
we first had to go to the district’s Advisory Board for Special Education [ABSE]
for its approval.
This violated the school board’s own policy for public participation and,
we therefore faxed a letter to the full board on November 9th informing you of
what had transpired and reminding you of your policy regarding agendizing, which
states as follows:
"A citizen may place an item on the Board agenda if the written request
and supporting information are received in the Superintendent's Office no later
than Tuesday noon of the week preceding a regular Board meeting. The speaker
will be allowed three minutes at the meeting to present the information
to the Board."
We never received a response to our letter. When the November 15th agenda
came out, ASK was not on it despite our having complied with your policy. Left
with no other choice, we did what Superintendent Davis and Mrs. Campbell
insisted: we went before the next duly noticed meeting of the Advisory Board on
Tuesday, November 14th, to make our presentation to obtain the Advisory Board’s
approval, despite the fact that even your own policy doesn’t require such
step.
At the Advisory Board meeting, after a discussion in which all attendees were
afforded the opportunity to speak, the Advisory Board voted 7-4 to recommend
that ASK’s presentation be brought to the school board. At no time during the
Advisory Board meeting, did anyone object to the validity of the vote or claim
that the meeting had not been properly noticed. In fact, Mrs. Campbell was one
of those who not only took the opportunity to speak against the presentation
prior to the vote, but also voted against bringing the presentation to the
school board. It was only AFTER the vote by the Advisory Board approved the
presentation did complaints suddenly materialize.
At the November 15th school board meeting, Mrs. Campbell brought up the
Advisory Board vote during her Board Commentary. She told the rest of the school
board that ASK’s original request for agendizing was to make a lengthy
presentation. As we’ve made clear, and as ASK’s two letters to the board
also made clear, this simply is not true.
Mrs. Campbell also stated that after the Advisory Board meeting, she received
complaints from Advisory Board members who had chosen not to attend the meeting,
but who after the fact claimed that they hadn’t been able to provide their
input. Mrs. Campbell then raised the issue that the meeting somehow wasn’t
properly noticed, despite the fact that an agenda had been circulated and that
it had been specifically at Mrs. Campbell and Superintendent Davis’s
insistence that ASK’s presentation was placed on the Advisory Board agenda for
its approval.
Ironically, at the November 15th school board meeting, Mrs. Campbell and
other board members spent almost fifteen minutes discussing ASK’s request and
the Advisory Board’s approval. Board members freely and without constraint
gave their side of the story, all the while misstating our request and our
letters. All with regard to an issue for which we were completely denied our
right to have even three minutes on the agenda.
On the basis of Mrs. Campbell’s statements and then after seeking
Superintendent Davis’s guidance, the matter was sent back to the Advisory
Board for yet another vote (one we fear the district may unfairly influence so
that the vote will end up AGAINST bringing the full board information about a
critical issue facing the district.)
We feel compelled to make several points regarding the board’s new policy:
1) On several occasions, we have observed that you will extend the three
minute time limit to accommodate those with whom you agree or who come here to
praise you, while those with opposing views do not receive the same courtesy.
2) Under the Brown Act, neither the superintendent, the board president, nor
any committee, advisory or otherwise, has veto authority over an individual’s
right to utilize their three minutes to speak to this board regarding any matter
related to school district business. By refusing to place us on the November
15th agenda for our three minutes, the board has in effect, vetoed our right.
The board’s new policy claims "The Board of Trustees encourages your
participation in its deliberations and has tried to make it convenient for you
to express your view to the Board." We submit that by imposing additional,
last-minute requirements upon members of the community with whom you disagree,
as you have here, not only have you made it inconvenient, we feel you are
attempting to discourage our participation in your deliberations. As well, we
feel this is a violation of the very heart of the Brown Act’s protections of
the community’s First Amendment right to free speech.
3) Not only did we comply with your new policy, we went further. Although not
required to do so by either your policy or the Brown Act, we took the additional
step of arranging with district staff for the Advisory Board’s review of the
video "Petroglyphs" and Mission Statement analysis for the express
purpose of furthering the education and awareness of that body.
4) According to Mrs. Bogart, Mrs. Campbell and the superintendent wanted ASK
to go before the Advisory Board for approval. Implicit in obtaining approval, is
that a vote must be held. We believe Mrs. Campbell was aware of this fact based
on her comments at the Advisory Board meeting that she had spent the prior
weekend discussing the upcoming presentation, which had not even yet been made,
with individuals she claimed didn’t agree with the thrust of the presentation.
In fact, contrary to what both Mrs. Campbell and Superintendent Davis stated
at the November 15 board meeting, the actual agenda circulated to Advisory Board
members clearly indicates that the "desired outcome" for this issue
was to forward a "recommendation" to the Superintendent. Surely, a
recommendation cannot come from the Advisory Board without a vote. Therefore,
anyone who received the agenda, and no one has raised the claim that they didn’t,
was given notice that a vote would occur in order to achieve a recommendation or
lack thereof. As a result, the call for a revote was unnecessary, especially
considering that a vote by the Advisory Board was never called for in the first
place.
Regarding the Brown Act:
We have available a more complete excerpting and analysis of the Brown Act,
as it applies to this situation. Briefly, the Act provides that the agenda is
to give members of the public the opportunity to address the legislative body on
any item of interest to the public relevant to the board’s jurisdiction.
Mr. Alfvin, you correctly pointed out at the November 15th meeting, that anybody
can request that something be put on the agenda. We can’t help but feel that
"anybody" means anybody but those of us with whom Mrs. Campbell and
Superintendent Davis don’t agree.
The Brown Act explicitly states that the school board cannot prohibit
public criticism of the policies, procedures, programs, or services of the
agency or the acts of omissions of the legislative body. We believe that our
public criticism of the district’s policies, procedures etc., regarding
special education, is exactly what the board is attempting to suppress.
As well, the Act allows the board to provide greater access to your
meetings than prescribed by the minimal standards set forth in the Act. In
other words, the board can provide greater opportunity for expression, but
cannot restrict that opportunity any more than the Act allows. Yet, this board
not only limits public participation through allowable time limits, it also
subjects parents with whom it disagrees to the review of other district bodies,
in direct conflict with your own policy. Ultimately, it denies these parents
their right to participate by denying them access to the agenda.
We believe your new "policy" with its selective implementation is
the latest attempt by the board to discourage participation by a group of
parents with whom certain members of this board disagree, from whom you would
prefer not to hear, and whose views you do not wish the general public to be
apprised of, specifically ASK parents whose children receive special education
services.
During ASK’s presentation at the Advisory Board, Mrs. Campbell spoke
forcefully against it, claiming it didn’t represent the opinion of all special
education parents in the community. Mrs. Campbell, it doesn’t have to. If as
you say, other families don’t agree with our position, they should have just
as much a right to stand up here and present their position as we do. Just
because one family isn’t having a problem with their child’s special
education services doesn’t invalidate the problems and concerns experienced by
many other families.
If only ONE family comes forward regarding the problems they’re having in
receiving appropriate special education services for their child, you as our
elected representatives should be concerned, for it means a child in this
district is not being properly served.
This board is here to represent the community, including ASK members. You are
obligated to hear our concerns, even if you don’t agree with us. Although we
don’t expect you to agree with us, at a minimum we do expect you to play by
your own rules and allow our side of the issue to be heard by the community,
just as your side is.
We feel it is an abuse of power to prevent the public airing of critical
issues of concern to your constituents, especially when the procedures used
infringe upon the rights of those constituents under the First Amendment and the
Brown Act. We also believe that a systematic effort is underway to prevent the
full membership of the Board and the community from hearing our perspective.
What is truly sad is that you have attempted to prevent discussion regarding
what should be a very innocuous issue, this district’s Mission Statement.
Clearly, this is not an innocuous issue, as it is a metaphor for all that is
wrong with this district’s attitude towards its special needs population and
the programs that are supposed to be serving them.
ASK has spent the last year trying to constructively address problems related
to special education in this district. It is our assessment that our
constructive criticisms have been taken personally and the response has been to
thwart our attempts to participate in the process. But we are here to say that
this isn’t about you. This is about our children and about the fact that they
are not getting what they need to achieve an appropriate education nor what they’re
entitled to under the law.
We believe that you cannot solve a problem until you first acknowledge you
have one. Our request for three minutes on the agenda was simply to ask you to
consider a presentation about a problem which needs to be addressed and which we
believe, with the will and a little hard work, can be overcome.
We feel rebuffed by your refusal to allow us to take even a first step toward
solving this problem. We wonder: are you afraid the community will find out
special ed is a problem in this district? We think that many people in the
community already know there is a problem in special education and they are
looking to you as the policy-making body for this district and to your district
administrators to do something about it.
We will leave with Nancy Bogart a packet of materials which contain our
comments, documents referenced in our comments, as well as an analysis of the
Brown Act information which we mentioned. There are copies for all of you.
I am also available to answer any questions you might have, now or at a later
time.
ASK Parents
