CVUSD trustees still not listening


The Conejo Valley school board last met June 19, seven weeks ago. At the time, they decided to omit from the agenda the controversial opt-in/core-literature selection policy that they have considered and voted on several times because they have not been able to get it right.

First, it was written by one person instead of a district committee composed of teachers, district staff and parents. It was based on California Department of Education annotations that have since been removed because they were being misused by those wanting to scare and alarm parents by condemning books with realistic content.

Then the policy and amendments were presented in violation of the Brown Act governing public meetings. All of these discussions garnered a lot of public interest and passion from community, teachers, parents and students as evidenced by the standing-roomonly crowds and dozens of speakers at many meetings.

Yet in the weeks since this policy was last discussed, have any board members listened to the concerns of the teachers who are charged with implementing this policy or the students who will be affected by the policy or parents or other community members?

Has any trustee held public listening sessions to learn how to improve the policies? Our leaders should be setting the example of always seeking to improve; they should make the policy more userfriendly.

School board members need to be responsive to stakeholder communities. They should constantly be learning how they can better respond to the needs of professionals, students and parents, instead of publicly criticizing their employees for not being cooperative.

The board should be reaching out to listen and respond to the professionals they serve.

Bill Gorback
Thousand Oaks
Gorback is a candidate for the
Conejo Valley school board.