Japanese internment memorial at Analy gets a thumbs up, while plan to lease part of El Molino to the Park District fails
Japanese internment memorial at Analy gets a thumbs up, while plan to lease part of El Molino to the Park District fails
Recap of the Oct. 11 West Sonoma County Union High School District board meeting
The West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) board meeting started out on a positive note Wednesday evening with an impressive presentation by the award-winning Sebastopol Future Farmers of America leadership team.
The major items on the agenda for the evening were as follows:
Japanese Internment Memorial Proposal
Three students from the Analy Zen Remembrance Club—Owen Foley, Oren Averbuck and Jaylin Dyleski—gave a presentation about a mural and Zen garden that they want to build on campus as a memorial to the Japanese Internment and the local history around that.
“A little highlight we focus on, of course, is that some Sebastopol people stepped in to take care of properties when Japanese Americans were forced to leave to these camps,” said Foley. “This didn't negate the larger injustice, but we hope to draw attention to the greater history by intriguing people with this little known fact.”
“It'll be a visual teaching resource,” he said of the mural and garden. “So as anyone walks by, first it will be beautiful, and there'll be an entry and after that first step then our hope is they’ll learn about the history. And we can teach a community-focused way forward, saying ‘In times of need, you can turn to your community.’ Even if the harm seems so great, little small acts can still be done,” he said.
This proposal, which was supported by the local Japanese American Citizens League (JCL), got a unanimous endorsement from the board.
The JCL has put up a $1,250 matching grant for this project. If you’d like to donate, send a check to Analy Zen Remembrance Club, Analy High School Office, 6950 Analy Ave., Sebastopol, CA 95472.
Plan to host Park District offices at El Molino torpedoed
David Robinson and Mark Morley of Sonoma County Regional Parks introduced a proposal to lease space for the park department’s Youth Career Pathways Program. They wanted to lease three classrooms, an office, bathroom and truck storage for the program, which focuses on giving troubled young people, age 18-24, training in land maintenance.
This proposal was enthusiastically supported by the principal of Laguna High School Greg Alexander, WSCUHSD Superintendent Chris Meredith, facilities manager Jennie Bruneman, and several board members.
“I want this on our campus,” Alexander said. “I sat through an exhibition today from a student who wants to go into this field. I understand that it’s for ages 18 to 24. We have a lot of seniors who are that age. I'm just going to be honest: we have the most marginalized kids in the district. This is an opportunity for them, and I'm going to be pretty angry if we fritter this away.”
Alexander’s enthusiasm for having the program at El Molino was not shared by board members Debbie Samiloff Ramirez and Shawn Chernila, who voted against the proposal.
Samiloff-Ramirez said there needed to be both a community needs assessment and some kind of community advisory process in place before the board could decide on how (and to whom) to lease parts of El Molino. Chernila echoed this concern about the lack of community involvement.
Bruneman said the district’s legal team had written the agreement with the parks department and no such advance work was required by law. Meredith said he’d been in regular communications with parents in west county who wanted something to be done with the campus. Their protests were in vain.
When the vote was called, three members (Jeanne Fernandes, Julie Aiello, Lewis Buchner) voted to have the parks program at El Molino, while Ramirez and Chernila were opposed.
At first Aiello claimed victory for the ‘yes’ vote, but Ramirez reminded her that leasing a school property required a two-thirds majority to pass, so in fact, the vote had failed.
“I feel completely caught off guard by this,” Bruneman said angrily. “I am really disappointed right now.”
And so—it seemed by the grumbling—were the majority of the people in the room.
There are more than 50 empty classrooms on the El Molino campus.
Net Zero Energy - Not
A representative of Quatttocchi Kwok gave a presentation on why the Net Zero Energy standard was not a reasonable goal for the new Career Technical Education Classroom. Instead, he said that they would build to the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) standards, which are stricter than California’s Title 24 Energy Code.
In other actions
The district has $20 million left from the Measure A bond to allocate to facility improvement projects. After discussing the need for staff input, the board tabled a discussion of prioritizing the next phase of facility improvements.
Superintendent Chris Meredith gave a brief report on enrollment and interdistrict transfers. He said the projected enrollment for Analy had increased by 55 students. “Our enrollment is up, our interdistrict transfers-out down, our interdistrict transfers-in up, and students who've left the district for private schools or non traditional schooling models is down. So all indicators for enrollment trends are in the green.”