Corona norco unified school district full#
Corona norco unified school district series#

The girl continued speaking without her mask, and with a smirk. The second expressed various anti-masking beliefs, including: “I believe it suffocates children.” She added that she has asthma and was going to remove her mask to take a breath - then continued talking with her mask down.Īn adult gently said that now that she’d taken her breath she should put her mask back on.

Corona norco unified school district full#

(And yet she wasn’t too shy to speak into a microphone to a room full of adults.) The first said she’d been too shy to participate in class because of her mask. Two young students came to the lectern separately to speak. Others said masks are useless or should be a choice. Some said this wasn’t the time to relax our vigilance. We need to do everything in our power not to close down.” “As we’re reading the law now, it’s mandated,” legal counsel Jim Romo said. If Corona-Norco Unified defied the state, he said, officials and board members might face civil liability “for gross negligence.”īoard president Bill Pollock said: “I hate these masks, but we need to do everything we can to keep kids in in-person learning. The Centers for Disease Control on July 27 recommended masking as well. Thankfully everyone moved on.Īs for masking, some in the audience wore matching T-shirts with the slogan “My Child My Choice” or had such handmade signs as “Your fear doesn’t take away my freedom to infect you” - oh, wait, I added those last words.ĭistrict officials said California’s Department of Public Health is mandating masks for all in the K-12 grades, and that’s regardless of anyone’s vaccination status to avoid stigma, bullying or isolation. He sounded ready to lead a symposium or something.īuenrostro urged the board to avoid getting sidetracked.

Corona norco unified school district series#

He proposed a series of forums to engage with the community about critical race theory and go in depth about what it is. who teaches critical race theory to his doctoral students at University of Redlands, wasn’t quite ready to drop it. “We do not teach critical race theory and passing (the resolution) or voting against it will muddy the waters,” Buenrostro said.īoard member Jose Lalas, a professor with a Ph.D. Superintendent Sam Buenrostro advised the board to simply drop the resolution. You might say the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin and the Olympics are a little far afield for public education in Corona and Norco. My favorite speaker was the woman who humorlessly compared the “good intentions” behind critical race theory to, yes, “communism,” adding that “20 to 40 million people were murdered by Stalin.” She also complained about “woke athletes” at the Olympics. One speaker said she certainly hoped teachers wouldn’t sow dissension, while others said the phrase was so ambiguous that debates in speech class might qualify. But it did cut down on the repetition and hot air.Ī line in the resolution saying the district opposed “sowing dissension” in class came under fire. I have to say, in three decades of covering public agencies, I’ve never encountered a rule quite like that. Response from speakers was mixed, and also limited: Rather than hours of public comments, the board allots only 20 minutes per topic. The stance was that only legal scholars employ the theory, which doesn’t have anything to do with K-12 education, and that “special interest groups” around the country have latched onto the phrase to oppose “such topics as diversity, cultural tolerance, equity and inclusion,” which the district would continue to promote. Thus, the agenda had a two-page resolution, “District Stance on Critical Race Theory.” It was on the agenda at the request of resident Stacie Holley, who’s against it, and at the acquiescence of the board, under the principle that refuting it would be a teachable moment. Evidently things got heated at the last board meeting, with anti-maskers shouting at board members, leading to extra security. Two sheriff’s deputies were stationed in the hallway and my seat was next to a third deputy.

Within two minutes, an official was opening the door, telling me “we have one seat” and ushering me inside, like the maitre d’ at an exclusive restaurant mortified to learn an A-lister was outside. (Aleman, by the way, never did get in and ended up watching from home.) Uh, to attend a public meeting? I introduced myself as being from the newspaper. Someone opened the door and asked what I wanted. I pulled on the door handle, which was locked, and found myself waiting next to Norco Councilwoman Kathy Aleman. When I showed up in Norco, about 50 people were standing in the parking lot outside. If the district wanted to get everyone’s attention, two hot-button issues certainly did the trick. Not surprisingly, the room Tuesday night, Aug. Any school board meeting with both masks and critical race theory on the agenda has a lot going for it, which is how I found myself at the Corona-Norco Unified School District board room.