Public commenters have called on four Grossmont Union High School District board members to resign after multiple allegations of misconduct.
Dozens of speakers denounced the board’s conduct at a Thursday meeting on the heels of reports by the San Diego Union-Tribune regarding trustees discussing board business in private texts and emails, which commenters alleged violated the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state law that governs open meetings .
The messages detailed allegations against staff members the trustees considered political enemies.
The commenters are seeking immediate resignations from Robert Shield, Jim Kelly, Scott Eckert and Gary Woods. The board has five members, including Chris Fite, who also criticized his colleagues.
Speakers also spoke out against the potential pay-for-play between Eckert and a campaign donor as well as the board’s decision to eliminate all teacher-librarian positions at district high schools.
The crowd of over 100 chanted in support of the commenters, repeating “resign, resign, resign.” Many also held signs stating “Students deserve better” and “Stop GUHSD layoffs.”
“We have a school board majority who in secret group texts refers to the teachers as the opposition, celebrating strategically-created teacher layoffs, saying ‘RIF RIF RIF,’ like it’s a victory chant,” said one commenter. “If you have any integrity at all, you must step down tonight.”
RIF refers to the human resources term, “reduction in force.”
Teacher-librarians from West Hills, Granite Hills and El Cajon Valley high schools who were fired spoke out during the board meeting about the “significant consequences” that students will face without adequate library staffing, noting that they were already understaffed before the layoffs.
The board tacitly addressed the public comment through a resolution on the agenda titled “Approval of Brown Act commitment regarding Board communications per Government Code section 54960.2(c).”
When outlining the resolution, the board stated that it “unconditionally commits that it will cease, desist and not repeat … challenged past actions as described above” to avoid “unnecessary litigation.”
The board also emphasized that there was no conclusive evidence of any Brown Act violation and stated that the item was instead an opportunity to uphold the Brown Act and remain accountable to the public.
The Brown Act calls on local government agencies to provide timely notice to the public of upcoming meetings and places restrictions on appointed and elected officials discussions of public business outside of the public eye.
Rachel McCurry, a grandmother of two children who will likely attend schools in the district, repeated that she was “ashamed” and “embarassed” by the Board’s conduct.
“At this meeting, you want to make a promise to not do that stuff anymore,” McCurry said. “It’s like a kindergartener saying ‘I’m sorry.’ Are you going to pinky swear with all of us to be good from now on?”
The resolution was approved with a 4-1 vote, with Fite dissenting.
Later in the meeting, Fite rebuked the rest of the board.
“I try to discuss things with my board members,” Fite said. “It’s like I’m speaking another language.”
Much of Fite’s report during the meeting was regarding options for the district’s ethnic studies curriculum. One curriculum was developed by teachers and staff in the district and an alternate curriculum was proposed by Woods and assembled by the Independent Institute, described online as a Libertarian think tank.
Fite argued that lectures in the alternative curriculum essentially encouraged students to “move on” from the United States’ history of slavery and that slavery had occurred in other countries globally.
“The fact that (slavery) has occurred elsewhere does not lessen the damage in the history that we’ve had in this country,” Fite said.
Tensions between Fite and the rest of the board were evident, particularly during Fite’s report.
Woods interrupted, reminding Fite that the board is “limited in (their) ability to respond to statements of the public on items not on the agenda.” This statement was met by boos from the public and Fite responded by stating that the ethnic studies curriculum agenda item had been continuously pushed from the agenda.
Fite echoed the calls of transparency from the public, agreeing that the board had failed to explain their reasoning behind decisions.
“Your text messages also note that community members are not respectful enough to you,” one public commenter stated. “Respect is earned. You have not earned it.”
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