RUSD Board of Education — April 12, 2022

Meeting Summary

Students filled public comment to fight a high school ASB adviser's removal, while the board moved to fill a student trustee seat and shifted its November 2022 meeting off Election Day

📄 On sourcing: no adopted minutes for this meeting are on file. This recap is built from the published agenda and the meeting recording. A recording establishes what was said, never reliably who said it — the speaker labels on this transcript are automated, and many of them are automated voice matches rather than identifications. So this page describes what was said without naming who said it, and it reports no vote breakdown of any kind.

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🎓 A student campaign over an ASB adviser

The longest and most emotional stretch of the evening was about something that never appeared on the printed agenda: the removal of Redlands East Valley High School's Associated Student Body adviser from that role for 2022-23, while he kept his math classes.

Three students spoke back to back at the start of public comment.

• The first said the school's administration was "unjustly removing him from the position due to a personnel issue", and described an adviser who stayed on campus until 11 p.m. or midnight setting up rallies and who matched, out of his own pocket, whatever ASB students collected to buy gifts for struggling staff 1.
• A three-year ASB member, and the incoming senior class president, said the change would be "the biggest disservice to next year's senior class", and — as a student who had never seen a traditional school year because of COVID — said she relied on the adviser "for historical purposes about how ASB is supposed to be operated" 2.
• A third read a statement for a former ASB president who could not attend, describing "numerous petitions from both current and former students and families" circulating in support 3.

Later in the meeting, three emails on the same subject — skipped earlier by mistake — were read into the record. They asked for an explanation of the decision, said no transition plan for 2022-23 had been given to students or parents, said the ASB summer camp was "now in jeopardy", and complained that requests for an explanation had been redirected at both the school and the district 4.

📰 The dispute had already been in the local press. Redlands Community News reported that between 30 and 40 students, mostly ASB members, protested on March 17, that the adviser had held the role for eight years, and that his math assignment was unchanged 5.

Nothing on the record answered them. No one on the dais responded to the ASB comments, no item was agendized that night, and the subject does not return in the recording. The rules read aloud beforehand set the posture: public comment "is not meant to be a debating period", each speaker is held "to three minutes", and complaints on policy matters "will be referred to the superintendent" 6. The board's own bylaw leaves more room than that — BB 9323 lets a board member ask staff to report back at a later meeting, or "take action directing staff to place a matter of business on a future agenda", and it sets the default speaking time at five minutes, which the president may shorten with the board's consent 7.

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🗣️ The second front: mandates, a classroom book, and the barrier

The rest of public comment came from a different set of speakers, continuing a run of pandemic-era confrontations with this board.

Vaccine mandates. A speaker who said he was a practicing neurologist argued that "A vaccine should be safe, and it should be effective", disputed that COVID-19 vaccines prevent infection, and raised claims about myocarditis, neurological injury and fertility 8. Another asked the board to defend students against SB 871, which he described as "requiring students K through 12 to be vaccinated regardless of the FDA approval, personal belief statement, and very few medical exemptions", and asked the board to "allow the parents to decide what is best for their child" 9. The bill was real and pending: CalMatters reported that SB 871 "would require all children 0 to 17 to get the COVID-19 vaccine to attend child care or school" 10. Two days after this meeting it was gone — the California Globe reported on April 15 that its author, Sen. Richard Pan, "dropped SB 871 on Thursday", before its first committee vote 11.

A classroom read-aloud. A parent said her fifth-grade daughter had asked what the word "pervert" meant and traced it to a book read aloud in class that she said deals with "spousal abuse, murder, violence, and inappropriate sexual references". She said the principal agreed to pull it from the reading list but that the teacher was still offering it to students with parent permission, and concluded that "what the teachers need is better oversight and the ability to judge what they're presenting to our children within the classroom" 12.

The room itself. Two speakers attacked the barrier separating the audience from the board. One opened by congratulating members "for your bravery for hiding behind a screen instead of being here", accused the district of indoctrination on race and sexuality, and said "you guys are tyrants" 13. Another said parents with paperwork had been found "so scary that now we have this big barrier that we can't be in the same room physically", contrasted that with two years of masks on children, and asserted that "it's against the law for you to try to deter people to serve you paperwork" 14. A third speaker turned instead to the board's conduct, saying she had received a certified cease-and-desist letter from the district and telling the board, "I am not sorry you were uncomfortable with a loving mother handing you a stack of papers" 15.

School food. One parent turned from mandates to nutrition, saying "110,000 students have left California public schools this year", and asked the district to bring back "salad bars", cut "processed foods on the lunch menu" and teach basic cooking skills 16.

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🧑‍🎓 A student trustee seat, 27 years after the bylaw

The night's most consequential governance action drew no argument at all: the board approved implementation of the student trustee concept, to begin in 2022-23 1718. One comment framed it as giving students "not only a voice, but a participatory voice" 19, and the item carried 20.

It was less a new idea than an unused one. The board's own bylaw BB 9150, on the books since 1995, already says "the Board shall include a student Board member selected in accordance with procedures approved by the Board", with a one-year term starting July 1, a seat at the table, and the right to cast preferential votes recorded in the minutes 21.

The real work was the discussion item that followed, on the student trustee selection process 22. A draft timeline was circulated at the table: open an application window with principals spreading the word, have the process done by the end of April, then screen applications and interview the top three candidates the week of May 16 23. Decisions would follow around May 24, the chosen students would be introduced at a June meeting, and a student board workshop would be held before the new school year began 24. Board members said they wanted a hand in the selection rather than leaving it to principals 25, and settled on splitting the high schools by trustee area so each campus had a board member attached 24. Expectations for year one were deliberately low: a developmental "soft start" of three or four months spent setting protocols, learning how the board operates and electing officers 24.

What became of it: two weeks later the board announced from the dais that the concept, "which was approved at the last board meeting, will be moving ahead", and told students to watch their school announcements for applications 26. It stuck. By the fall a student trustee was seated: the October 11, 2022 minutes record a student trustee report on events at all three comprehensive high schools 27, and a board discussion of student trustees having a preferential vote — the mechanism BB 9150 had described since 1995 28.

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🗓️ The Election Day catch, three resolutions, and an expulsion

The 2022-23 meeting calendar was on the agenda for routine approval 29. In discussion a trustee pointed out that the board's single November meeting fell on November 8 — Election Day 30. The motion was restated to strike November 8 and substitute November 15, 2022 31, and the calendar was approved as amended 32. The change held: the 2022-23 calendar's November meeting was noticed for November 15, 2022 33.

Three resolutions followed, each with little or no discussion:

• Resolution No. 35 authorized temporary borrowing between funds of the school district 34, and carried 35.
• Resolution No. 37 continued the board's authority to meet virtually under AB 361 36, and carried 37. A trustee asked, "When does this go away?" 38, and was told it eventually sunsets, in 2023 39, with January mentioned 40. In practice the resolutions kept coming, because AB 361 "requires the Board to make findings justifying continuing to hold virtual Board meetings within 30 days of the first virtual meeting after October 1, and every 30 days" after that — a continuation resolution was still on the board's November agenda 41.
• Resolution No. 36 backed AB 1703 (Ramos), the California Indian Education Act, on collaboration with local tribes and Native American student achievement 42, and carried 43.

The board also approved a panel expulsion of a student through the remainder of the 2021-22 school year 4445.

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📋 Consent, closed session, and the rest of the night

Routine business moved in three consent blocks plus a block of human resources action items, with almost no discussion. Inside them: design work for Central Kitchen improvements at $210,158 and environmental documentation for the REV stadium project at $51,072 46; up to $30,000 through June 2024 for consulting on child sexual abuse prevention 47; a new Intermediate Python Programming course and first readings of policies on district residency, head lice, education for homeless children and foster youth 48; and a payment transmittal of $5,779,465.03 49. The only item to draw comment was the kitchen work, praised by a trustee who had toured the facility 50. The business services block was approved 51, the educational services block was approved 52, the human resources consent block was put to a voice vote, and the eight human resources action items were taken as a single block 53 and approved 54.

The board had met in closed session at 5:30 p.m. on labor negotiations, a public employee appointment, employee discipline/dismissal/release, and anticipated litigation 55. Reported out in open session: three management appointments — two elementary assistant principals and a technology services manager — and the termination of a classified employee effective April 13, 2022, under Education Code section 45123 23.

The staff report was a run of celebrations: a 10th-place state finish for a district Academic Decathlon team, county recognition for five employees who work with English learners, a Saturday bus driver recruitment event, a UC Davis C-STEM conference the district was hosting, and a parent training evening on identifying grooming behaviors — the community-facing side of the prevention consulting funded on the same night's consent calendar 56.

Closing board comments ran long and warm: congratulations to Citrus Valley's swim and track teams, both headed to state meets, and to the 50 Redlands East Valley musicians bound for the Anaheim Heritage Festival, and praise for a new family and community engagement workshop series 5748. A wave of retirements had been accepted that day, including a district staff member with 33 years, a 31-year high school teacher, and a 33-year elementary school employee 58. And site administrators drew an extended thank-you framed around schools "still dealing with the aftermath of covid" — anxiety, depression, bullying, social and emotional gaps in younger students — while being asked to run "as if everything is still normal" 59.