By Steve McIntosh
How many of you think you should be able to contact your elected school board member and talk to them about an issue, idea or complaint and that if they chose, could take that information forward, or find an answer, or present the idea to Administration? Would you be surprised to learn that as a Laguna Beach school board member, you are not allowed to try and solve issues for constituents and that doing so, is a violation of Board Bylaws? If approached, a board member must send the constituent to the Superintendent? This bylaw is just one of many that Supt. Jason Viloria and board members Jan Vickers, Carol Normandin, Peggy Wolff and James Kelly, have proceeded to tighten, reinterpret or alter, to maintain control over every single aspect of the district and to inhibit any free exchange of different ideas from any other board member or the public.
Meeting with a former student and constituent, is the action that got Board Member Dee Perry in trouble. In fact, Wolff scolded and intimidated the former student for speaking with Perry, when Wolff had actually helped constituents herself, according to emails obtained via the California Public Records Act. One is from Principal Jason Allemann to Wolff, responding to her forwarding him the email she sent to the former student, (which is shown) and the other where she was helping a friend trying get the Mountain Bike Club certified as PE credit.
These emails are just a few of many that show how the Board operates behind a Cloak and maintains quite the double standard.
In a recent City Council forum, one councilmember talked how a constituent was having a problem. He did his job and settled the issue for his constituent. That is what most people think board members are elected to do! History shows, not on this current School Board. Which is contrary to what Vickers mentioned at a Candidate Forum last night, when she said, “call us, we all have a cell phone”.
Items are only put on the agenda by the Superintendent and Board. Most are passed without any exchange of ideas, and are basically “rubber stamped”, discussions discouraged.
At the Dec. 11, 2018 board meeting where officers were installed, Perry suffered many verbal attacks. This is where she was passed over to be Board President. That video mysteriously has “technical difficulties” and is the only one listed with such a problem. What a coincidence! If you look at the other recorded meetings, see the snide comments, passive aggressive statements and anger directed towards Member Perry for daring to have a voice. “If you want to be president, you have to know how to conduct a meeting,” Normandin said. “You don’t know how to conduct a meeting. You caused this ruckus.”
Slogans like, Question Authority, Resist, Stand Up, Freedom, are on bumper stickers and T-shirts all over Laguna. These things are what Perry is trying to do! Anyone that had Perry as their kid’s teacher, knows how truly kind, caring and non-confrontational she is. The board majority and superintendent paint her as a troublemaker, just because she does not want to march with them.
There has been a constant attack to push member Perry to resign from the board. Released emails show that Vickers is obsessed with Perry and spends an inordinate amount of time trying to trip her up.
Regarding a meeting with Perry and the high school student senate, Vickers wrote:
“As I said as an aside to Victoria during the meeting perhaps with all the rancor right now it might have been better that she did feel I was watching her.”
When trying to trap Perry, Vickers wrote to Viloria:
“I am aware of a party who will make a public records request for correspondence done by Dee and Mr. Hills which should include her personal email based on the first treatise we received.” Which is obviously on their behalf.
With Vickers’ obsession with Perry, her negativity, combined with her almost 30 years on the board, perhaps it’s time for her to move on. We need open diverse, inclusive thinking on the board, with good exchanges of ideas and solutions. Not a board that is in lock-step with the Superintendent on virtually everything that comes along. During Monday’s candidate forum, Vickers said she would have to go back years to find anything she voted no for. Really?
Steve is a parent of a recent Laguna Beach High graduate.
