Clovis Unified school board loses credibility with its inconsistent votes in pandemic
The Clovis Unified School Board has lost all credibility, not because the public thinks the trustees are doing the “right thing” or the “wrong thing.” They are not trusted by the community on any side of these issues because they are inconsistent in their decision making, and opaque in their process.
They brought this on themselves.
In 2020, in the midst of continuing pandemic shut downs and surge in case numbers, the board voted, unanimously, to bring all Clovis Unified students back to school full-time. The board would have already known that state authorities were going to shut down all schools the following Monday. It was virtue signaling, and for a lot of CUSD families, a chip in the board’s credibility.
The virtue signaling continued as the 2020-21 school year began in online classrooms. The board sent letters to the governor asking that students be allowed back in class because ophthalmologist and board president Steven Fogg couldn’t “find the data” to support the school closures. Parents, teachers, and doctors brought the data to him at meetings. He still couldn’t find it. More credibility lost.
Entering the 2021-22 school year, the board decided to become the avatars of the vocal minority of voters who dominated meetings. After wildly inaccurate accusations and theories during public comments came a soliloquy from Fogg, Tiffany Stoker Maddsen or David DeFrank supporting them.
After Fogg claimed to have been wandering around the ICU at Valley Children’s Hospital “looking for evidence” that COVID was hurting the children of CUSD, the CEO of Valley Children’s issued a public statement eviscerating Fogg and the board on their anti-mask stance. With the vast majority of voters in CUSD, any credibility was absolutely gone. Still, there was that loud minority, the ones in the room every two weeks, the board still had them, right?
This year, in an effort to lock those members of the community in, the board took a futile vote for “local control” by offering parents the opportunity to play doctor for the district and “opt out” of the mask mandate, only to be overruled by local and state health officials.
The board was loudly applauded when that vote passed, but this stunt, clearly intended to show once again that the board was “on the side” of the vocal minority, can now be seen as the beginning of the end.
Other decisions have contributed. The change from three minutes of public comment time to two, the elimination of virtual public comment, the limiting of public comment to 30 minutes total, the refusal to publicly engage with those commenting, and the decision to stop live streaming the meetings themselves. Each decision Fogg and the board make cuts away at that credibility, even with the fringe.
There are parents who would welcome the chance to voice their opinions but cannot physically attend board meetings because of child care, work and, of course, COVID safety in a room full of anti-vaxxers. If you have attended a board meeting recently, you’ve seen that this behavior extends to verbal, and even physical, intimidation. The vast majority of those who disagree are not going to subject themselves to these circumstances.
The result is an echo chamber of the same voices, week over week, and the near complete loss of credibility with any voter in the district. So, the question is, why? Why is the board continuing to be opaque? Why are they further exacerbating the situation by shutting out more people? Why do they continue not wanting to follow health protocols, when at the end of the day, this is a public school district, and (even the board acknowledges) the law will be followed?