Oct 11 2022 IUSD Board Meeting- This Meeting Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Irvine Unified's Priorities
Use of Preferred Pronouns, Teen Talk Curriculum, Gender Ideology Embraced by Student Board Members with Open Arms
If there is one Board meeting I encourage everyone to watch the full replay of- it’s the October 11 2022 Board of Education meeting. The replay is available here. The meeting agenda can be found here. I feel this was one of the more pivotal IUSD Board meetings that I have sat through, in person, because:
A public comment was shared about Irvine’s population growth, and IUSD’s inadequate facilities planning as relates to population growth. Furthermore the commenter articulated the roadblocks parents have encountered when trying to escalate this concern
It took place prior to the November 2022 election in a year where public education policy was being hotly debated across the nation. IUSD had two of its own Trustee Area Seats up for election. Neither of the two seats would be filled by incumbents as incumbent for Trustee area 4 Ira Glasky & incumbent for Trustee Area 2 Sharon Wallin had announced their retirement from the Board.
Those in attendance got to hear from two of the candidates running for the Trustee Area 2 seat. Both candidates brought forward matters of concern they had been hearing from Irvine constituents. One of those candidates had taken time to closely review all of IUSD’s curriculum binders housed in the IUSD District Office. She raised question as to the purpose behind some of the exercises middle and high school students are asked to complete as part of the “Teen Talk” curriculum.
The evening’s public comments seemed to really strike a nerve with IUSD Administration, Student Board Members and Sonya Kearney (Irvine Teacher’s Association President). The commentary that ensued from the Union President, members of the public, Board Members and Student Board Members in response to agenda item of business 23(a) Public Hearing: Resolution No. 22-23-13: Statement of Assurance for PK-12 Instructional Materials Sufficiency for 2022-23 School Year took the cake. Student board members even shared their public comments at the end of the meeting in rebuttal to unscripted public comments I shared. I believe that was a first in all the meetings I’ve attended.
An argument can be made that protocol was broken by Board Member Cyril Yu when, during his Board Member Read Out, he responded to concern raised about “Teen Talk”/health/gender issues by defending IUSD’s approach to its Sex and Health Education curriculum implying that the IUSD curriculum is in full compliance with the California Healthy Youth Act. Mr. Yu even directed attendees to the section of IUSD’s website that contains pertinent information about IUSD’s implementation of and compliance with the California Healthy Youth Act. It seems like an awfully big coincidence that Mr. Yu happened to have the exact link to the appropriate IUSD page right at his fingertips…..***
Watching the replay of the whole meeting, for yourself, will give you context as to the direction our Irvine Unified District Leadership and Board are headed in and have doubled down on in recent months. It will also give you a feel for the character of District Leadership and individual Board Members as well as insight into the priorities of the 3 remaining incumbents on the Board (Lauren Brooks, Cyril Yu, Paul Bokota). It will shine light on what seems to be of highest significance and matters most to Irvine High School Students as represented by Student Board Members.
If you’re pressed for time & can’t watch the whole thing, I recommend you at least watch these sections:
Initial Public Comments: 13 minutes 45 seconds- 20 minutes 17 seconds
End of Mr. Yu’s Board Member Read Out: 56 minute 17 second mark- 58 minute mark
Public Hearing: Resolution No. 22-23-13: Statement of Assurance for PK-12 Instructional Materials Sufficiency for 2022-23 School Year: 1 hour 1 minute-1 hour 15 minute mark
Public Comments Prior to Meeting Adjournment: 1 hour 23 minutes 50 second-end of feed
I attended the October 22 meeting in person with my mom. She serves as my witness. There were 7-8 other members of the public in attendance. The number of staff in attendance matched the actual number of community members in attendance. The order and flow of the meeting was standard (procedurally). There was a heartwarming special presentation at the beginning of the meeting by Irvine Police Department introducing the Service Dogs that will be brought to various IUSD campuses to provide comfort and support for students in need. After the Special Presentation, the dynamic of the meeting got interesting….
As a personal opinion side note- this Board meeting is the one that has floored and disappointed me the most of any I have attended. Feeling completely defeated by the rebuttal my unscripted public comments at the end of the meeting received (more on this below)- I went on to attend the October 20 Continuous Improvement Council meeting (that I was a member of). I didn’t think it was possible to feel more defeated than I did on October 11 but I was wrong. The October 20 meeting felt like a “struggle session”. I listened to IUSD Administration announce the doubling down on equity, inclusivity and efforts to better support marginalized groups. This struggle session sealed the deal, for me, on my commitment to pull my third grader out of the District sooner rather than later. As part of the struggle session, members in attendance of the October 20th Continuous Improvement Council meeting were placed in groups of 6 and tasked with listing all the evidence we’ve observed that IUSD is becoming more inclusive and more supportive- especially of marginalized groups. Not a word was spoken about actual academics, academic progress or academic performance. There was no interest in conversation about closing opportunity gaps in academic performance and achievement. Below is a photo of my group’s completed assignment to give you a feel for where District Priorities lie:
Figure 1- Group 6 Completed Assignment From October 20, 2022 IUSD Continuous Improvement Council Meeting- Highlighting progress IUSD has made towards excellence in Diversity and Inclusion focused on Marginalized Groups
My group of 6 was comprised of an elementary school principal, the head of the new Intervention and Prevention department****, the Black Student Community Support Liaison, a student Board member, myself and…. I’m drawing a blank on the role of the 6th member but it was definitely someone on IUSD staff. I was the only non IUSD staff adult in my group. In an effort to be a good sport throughout the struggle session exercise (which I felt irrelevant to what is supposed to be the role of the Continuous Improvement Council and IUSD’s core mission/vision/values stated on their website), my contribution to this list was the mention of what I felt was most relevant to IUSD’s mission: AVID, Equal Opportunity Schools and PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention). Many of the other lists took things a step further than ours. This very Council exercise warrants its own separate Substack post. I will dedicate a post to it and will publish a photo of each group’s list. This will give you another glimpse into how the leaders of our District and the Continuous Improvement Council think.
Circling back to the October 11 Board meeting, I addressed the IUSD Board of Education and Student Board members at the end of the board meeting to share public comments. I hadn’t prepared any public comments ahead of this meeting nor had I intended to share any comments at the meeting. Some of the public comments shared were compelling and echoed my concerns thus I felt it important to weigh in and offer my support for what had been shared. I spoke from the heart, completely unscripted, sharing my personal experience and observations to provide credence to what the other public commenters had conveyed. The observations I shared during my public comments came from my experience serving on Continuous Improvement and School Site Councils, serving on the local PTA Board and from volunteering in the classroom:
My unscripted public comments commence around the 1 hour 27 minute 40 second mark
Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to share my public comments this evening. I wanted to just take the opportunity, based on some discussion that was had during the public hearing for resolution number Public Hearing: Resolution No. 22-23-13: Statement of Assurance for PK-12 Instructional Materials Sufficiency for 2022-23 School Year to share comments. I'll also address a little bit of what Ms. Kamm said [in her comments] with regard to mental health. I do think that there should be further conversation surrounding supplementary materials. I appreciate all the comments shared from everyone- from Catherine Holmes (Executive Director, Curriculum, Instruction & Professional Learning)- from Sonya Kearney (Irvine Teacher’s Association President), and from our student board members. Ms. Kamm just made a proposal about two weeks [for teachers to share supplemental materials used in the classroom two weeks ahead of intended date], but maybe that's not a reasonable amount of time. I do think there needs to be a mechanism of oversight or the ability for parents to know what types of supplementary materials are being brought into the classroom. I don't believe that we get any sort of information about that today. A lot of parents have major concerns, especially given some of the trends we're seeing- not just locally- but at a national level as well- at a state level. Concerns about ideologically motivated curriculums and ideologically motivated supplemental materials. I know for a fact this is happening. There are ideologically motivated materials being brought in. I'm not saying every teacher is doing it, but it is happening within the district. It's almost as if with the explicit focus on social justice that we have adopted which uses frameworks from the Southern Poverty Law Center who openly takes a progressive and ideological stance on social justice that some teachers may feel empowered to bring in ideologically motivated supplemental materials. We, as parents, are very concerned about that because we want our children to be taught how to think critically, how to understand and absorb different points of view. We need to find a common ground- a middle ground- that ties into what we were talking about with regard to mental health. If we are seeing ideologically motivated supplemental materials enter the classroom, could be any grade level, it creates a toxic culture. I would say we're pitting students against one another and putting them in very uncomfortable positions. I'm already starting to see this happen as early as the elementary level. It's bad for mental health across the board. I will just share an example. I was quite appalled, my daughter going into third grade this year, on the parents survey I got (that asked a bunch of questions about my student) asked of my third grader’s preferred pronoun. This is something I am absolutely uncomfortable with. Again, this is ideologically motivated, this question. So these types of things are happening. So I just please ask that we have a conversation surrounding supplemental materials, bring parents [into the discussion] and get some feedback from the community on this. Thank you.
Mr. Glasky thanked me for my personal input and gave the floor to the Student Board Members to weigh in with their responses. Mannat Bawa*****, Student Board Member representing Irvine High School, stated:
“We wanted to talk a little bit about what Ms. Kamm brought up with the transgender discussion that's happening in schools. Personally, I believe that these discussions are not a bad idea and that creating a forum where students can agree or disagree is part of our curriculum. And I think what school is meant to teach us is not only to voice our beliefs, but also to listen and hear out the other side. I think no matter what your opinion is, you're learning how to be open-minded. And the fact is that adults in the real-world are having these discussions on a day-to-day basis. We can't shelter these kids and not let them have a discussion if we really want to prepare them for the real-world. And the last comment made about preferred pronouns. I think personally in our high schools, this is becoming more of a norm. And it's really important to help those students who don't feel like they belong, that they get to feel recognized for how they are in their own identity. And I think actually taking the step to ask students what's your preferred pronoun is creating more of a sense of belonging like we talked about, and more unity on campus. And I think it's improving our mental health, not doing the opposite.”
Ida Ahola, Student Board Member representing Northwood High School, stated
“Continue on that idea... Mental health, especially among trans youth, is deteriorating at a rapid rate. I think, really importantly we should also be putting an emphasis on that part of the population because we have students of each gender trans kids in each grade level. There are trans kids in kindergarten. They might not fully understand it yet, but they are there. There are trans kids in middle school, there are trans kids in high school. I remember going through my middle-school “Teen Talk” and I had kids who had never been introduced to these ideas before. This was their first time and they realize, oh wow, that's what my friend is. You're introducing these ideas at a young age where there are no prejudices. So when you come up to a higher age, right, you get older, you're able to understand these concepts at a higher level without having these prior prejudices. And you know your trans friends, your gay friends as just your friends, right? I think it's so deeply important that we create a community at our schools where trans kids, gay kids, just queer youth are comfortable and happy and are able to exist amongst their peers. The comments about pronouns goes directly towards creating that community that we're trying to build of inclusivity where trans kids don't have to come out and say, hey, by the way, my preferred pronouns are such and such, where everybody feels comfortable regardless if they're cis gender or not. They come out and say, hey, my pronouns are this. So the trans kids are not felt left out by having to state specifically and explicitly what their pronouns are. Introducing these ideas and introducing these topics at a younger age creates this environment where trans kids-as they come to understand their own identity- are able to do it amongst a community that is inclusive and supportive of their identity.”
Madyson Chung-Lee, Student Board Member representing Portola High School, nodded in agreement and stated:
“I'll just add on real quick. I have experienced everything that has been discussed today and coming from a background where I was raised Christian. And sometimes I know that there is a lot of arguments from both sides. But, at the end of the day, we all are students who are going to the same school. Having these conversations is very important, starting from young age, especially because the longer that you shelter students from these, the longer that you wait and allow for prejudice to grow, and that only leads for further discrimination. So although these conversations may seem difficult, it's necessary for these to happen. I am someone who has personally benefited from these educations. And I am grateful for these educations. So I'll just leave it at that.”
The Student Board member representing Woodbridge High School remained silent. The Student Board member representing University High School was not absent from this meeting.
I regret that I haven’t been able to post this until now. I was overwhelmed with volunteer commitments throughout the fall and winter. As a result, I have been sitting on this material for months and it has eaten away at my soul. Additionally, I have been ruminating over the soundest approach to raising awareness on what’s happening in public education locally. Given what I posted recently with regard to the IUSD Board’s July 11 2023 approval of the IUSD Continuous Improvement Efforts, it seems that things are coming to a head. Perhaps the October 11 Board meeting was a critical inflection point.
Thank you for tuning in.
*** Mr. Yu & IUSD Administration seem to be completely unaware of what’s actually being pushed out to students via the Continuous Improvement Council, Community Support Liaisons and Mental Health Advisors. Records obtained from Public Records requests indicate emphasis on Gender Ideology is pervasive which is not compliant with the California Healthy Youth Act. I’ll be bringing this subject to light in upcoming Substack posts for you to be the judge.
**** The Intervention and Prevention department was newly formed at the start of the 2022-2023 school year has been renamed to “Mental Health and Wellness Department” effective July 2023
*****This conversation surrounding inclusivity towards different gender identities and the use of preferred pronouns made such an impression on Student Board Member Mannat Bawa that when acknowledged for her service as a Student Board Member at the May 30, 2023 Board meeting, the script read "She is grateful to have been a student board member this year. The experience has taught her that students have a voice and what they say matters. She shared at one of the first few meetings this year, the student board members spoke out to share their opinion on using preferred pronouns in class in response to a public comment. While it seemed like a small thing at the time, they received an email from a counselor in our district who works with LGBTQ youth, thanking them. It was a heartwarming moment that reminded me to use our voice and showed that our voice isn't quieter just because we are students.” Mannat will be attending USC, this fall, on a full tuition merit scholarship where she plans to study comparative literature.