Angry parents force Yosemite school board to shut down meeting. Here’s what happened

A few minutes after the school board meeting began on the football field in Oakhurst on Wednesday, a man standing below the bleachers started shouting over the speaker.

The board president told the man he couldn’t interrupt.

”I can do whatever I want,” he replied.

Then, from atop the highest bleacher, came the voice of a sheriff’s deputy: “No, you can’t.”

The deputy, one of many called to watch over Wednesday night’s meeting, descended the stairs to stand next to the man, and the meeting continued.

Parents say that the contentious scene was the aftermath of what happened at Yosemite Unified School District’s originally scheduled board meeting on Monday. That meeting adjourned early after a group of parents, many against masks and vaccines, heckled the board so much it could no longer continue.

The meeting was rescheduled for Wednesday and held on the Yosemite High football field to accommodate parents who did not want to wear masks, according to Superintendent Glenn Billington.

Compared to Monday’s meeting, parents and trustees said, Wednesday’s continuation was tame.

Billington described Monday’s meeting to The Bee.

“We had some parents who did not want to wear masks, and our rule is on campus, you have to wear a mask,” he said.

California requires masks to be worn indoors at all schools with limited exceptions to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The board did not want to start the meeting until everyone inside had a mask on, but some parents refused, and that’s when it “devolved,” he said.

“They were pretty disruptive about it, so we weren’t able to move on (and), after some time, we moved public comment out to the football field.”

But when they attempted to move the meeting back inside after the public comment period, the group continued to disrupt, hurling insults at the board, and the meeting was adjourned.

The sheriff’s office was called, but “that didn’t solve the problem,” Billington said.

Parent Dahnyalle Reden, who has a freshman son at Yosemite High School, said she attended both Monday and Wednesday’s meeting.

Reden said the sheriff’s office wasn’t enforcing mask-wearing with any of the group.

She said they were making sure things were orderly, but “there’s not really a whole lot for them to do. They just kind of stood at the door and watched.”

The Madera County Sheriff’s Office said three deputies were assigned to Monday’s school board meeting and four were on duty for Wednesday’s meeting and no arrests were made either night.

Responding to a question about mask enforcement, sheriff’s spokesperson Kayla Gates, said deputies are assigned to maintain safety and order, not enforce what essentially amount to school rules.

“The mask guidelines are a guidance, and not an order. Schools maintain the authority to enforce their rules,” Gates said in a statement. “Law enforcement officials were on site to maintain peace and order and exercise enforcement action if a violation of the law were to occur. Often times our mere presence will diffuse or dissuade criminal acts. Our presence was to ensure the safety of all present during the meeting.”

Sheriff Tyson Pogue said he was “grateful that the meeting was able to proceed and ultimately conclude Wednesday without incident.”

“We understand the importance of maintaining a safe environment during public meetings,” Pogue said in the statement. “We had deputies on standby to ensure both sides of this emotionally charged debate were able to communicate and express their opinions in a productive manner.”

Reden said she was at the meeting to voice her concern about the school quarantining her son twice in a month and not providing instruction.

Other parents, such as Brett Supernaw, were there to protest COVID-19 testing without parent consent, and what he says are kids being sent home without parental notification.

He said his two teenagers were made to take a COVID test, then “they were told to leave, just (to) leave the campus. I put my kids on campus so I can go to work, and I know they’re safe.”

Supernaw took a video Monday of a masked woman who appeared to flip off both Supernaw and his wife, Heather. His wife said the woman was part of a vocal group who supported masking in school — and who is also their neighbor.

During the meeting, many attendees greeted each other, proof of the tight-knit community in Oakhurst that made the contention even more implosive. A group of people who support the masking mandate were also in attendance, though there were no visible arguments between the two groups.

“I mean, it does get heated at times,” Reden said. “It is a small community, and people know each other; there’s a lot of loud voices on social sites.”

Trustee Steven Myers thanked the crowd Wednesday for “keeping a standard of decorum tonight.”

He explained that Monday’s meeting got out of hand, and the board “left the room in order to establish what we could do as a board and follow the rules.”

“A school board meeting is not a town hall,” he said. “It’s designed as a business meeting for the board to make decisions regarding the policies of the school, the finances of the district, and the oversight of the superintendent.”

Other trustees said they welcomed parent comments and only wished parents were as involved in other aspects of their children’s schooling.

Myers said change sometimes happens slowly, and it can be frustrating for all. “(But) we need to operate within our authority.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.

This story was originally published September 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.