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Last week’s Sunol Glen School Board of Trustees meeting was a busy one with several topics ranging from Superintendent and Principal Molleen Barnes’ planned departure from her position to a discussion about potentially updating the code of conduct for holding public comments.
But as has been the case in most of the board’s recent meetings, the public comments from residents and community members were contentious with people addressing alleged racists remarks made by a member of the district’s Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee, continued political divisiveness in the community and the ongoing efforts to recall trustees Ryan Jergensen and Linda Hurley.
“We are witnessing the intentional dismantling of one of the most successful schools in the state,” Sunol Glen teacher Chris Wheeler said during the Feb. 20 board meeting. “Linda, Ryan — we know what you are and what you’re about. Deceit, deception, collusion and lies.”
During the extended portion of the board’s community comment period at the end of the meeting — a new strategy that Jergensen said the board was trying out as a way to include more public comments — Kelly Goldsmith, who is a Sunol parent on the United for Sunol Glen recall committee, broke the news to Jergensen and Hurley that the committee got more than enough signatures to submit its recall petition to the county.
Jergensen told the Weekly a day after the meeting that he had not heard about the news prior to those comments at the meeting but that the recall is still not official and that after many attempts of contacting the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office, the office has not responded to questions he has regarding the petition.
“I understand the Alameda County (Registrar of Voters) has a month to verify signatures as being from legally registered Sunol voters. I have heard that recall proponents have been getting many people from outside Sunol to sign the petitions also,” Jergensen said. “We will have to wait and see what the voters of Sunol want.”
“I have also heard from many Sunolians who are very disappointed by the group bringing this recall effort and want the board to continue the business of the school board,” Jergensen added. “That is what I will continue to do.”
Hurley has not responded to the Weekly’s inquiries about the petition filing to date.
Fellow pro-recall committee member and parent Erin Choin also spoke up during public comments, alleging the One Sunol anti-recall campaign is out of compliance with Fair Political Practices Commission requirements regarding the size of campaign flyers that are posted around the town and for not disclosing information on who paid for the flyers.
“Your signs need to have disclosure saying who paid for them that are at least 5%, the size of the sign. None of your signs have that,” Choin said. “You also exceed the size of a sign; they may only be 32 square feet. The sign that’s on that trunk right in the middle of our town right now definitely exceeds that.”
Apart from the potential recall to come, several speakers also expressed their beliefs that the recent tensions and contention within the school board over the past year has led to Barnes announcing her departure at the end of the school year.
The board addressed Barnes’ departure during an agenda item at the beginning of the meeting where they talked about how to begin the hiring process for a new superintendent and how they will be working with the Alameda County Office of Education.
After some back and forth between Trustee Peter “Ted” Romo and Jergensen about who will make initial contact with the county — Romo thought the person should only be Barnes given that she is the outgoing superintendent while Jergensen said that he, as a board member representing the community, should be the one — the board voted 2-1 with Romo in dissent to begin that conversation with the county.
Jergensen, with the help of Barnes, will begin those conversations with the county to request for its help in getting an outside third-party recruitment firm and paying for that service. After that, Jergensen said the district will work on sending surveys out to the community, creating interview questions and a screening process before putting up advertisements about the soon-to-be open position.
During the discussion, Barnes addressed the public saying that while she will miss the school and community, she has been very fortunate to serve the parents, staff and the children who she sees as being her grandchildren.
Others like Vic Cloutier, a former Sunol trustee who supports the recall effort, also shared their deepest thanks for all the years that Barnes had put into the school.
“I just want to say … how indebted and thankful we are for you Molly,” Cloutier said in tears. “You’ve taken this small school and turned it into a beacon of academic excellence and wonder.”
Many — including Cloutier — said that they didn’t think Barnes had been planning on retiring and blamed Jergensen and Hurley for creating a hostile environment that led Barnes to an early retirement.
“For those of you who unfortunately believe the lies peddled by two board members here, Molly did not plan to retire this year,” Cloutier said while slamming the podium. “The devastating toll of dealing with almost daily attacks, lies and toxic harassment have proven too much and I am so sad that this is how you end your incredible career at Sunol.”
However, not everyone blamed Jergensen and Hurley for Barnes’ departure.
Sunol resident Bob Frillman expressed warm sentiments toward Barnes and told the story about how his daughter had at one point become superintendent for a day and how much she enjoyed that experience, even if she didn’t get her own desk.
In his comments, Frillman also defended Jergensen and Hurley, saying how those supporting the recall were the problem.
“I’m saddened to hear, however, how … other speakers stood up and just continued to just spew the vitriol that has been going on in these meetings — personal attacks against two people,” Frillman said. “If you people would swallow this much of the venom that you have in your craw and get to know those two people, you’ll discover that they’re decent human beings. They care about this school. They care about kids.”
Another regular speaker and Sunol resident who spoke up in support of Jergensen and Hurley was Debbie Ferrari who said she was disappointed in her community for attacking the two trustees in past meetings.
“I’ve said many times, if you didn’t like something Ryan and Linda said or how they acted, you could sit down with them. That’s what I did,” Ferrari said. “They’re not perfect. Neither am I and the key point is neither are any of you. That was never attempted, period.”
However, as Cloutier alluded to in a separate public comment, Ferrari was recently in the middle of her own controversy regarding an email that was published in a special issue of The Sunolian on Feb. 20.
In the article, an email the resident allegedly sent to Anna Wang, the associate dean for public service and public interest law at the Stanford Law School, shows Ferrari asking Wang why she is contributing to the recall and told Wang, “Most people I know of Chinese descent are much more compassionate and they understand that this is about control, control like they have seen in China.”
Cloutier said the email was racist and that because Ferrari had been appointed to the district’s Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC), they needed to intervene by adding language regarding unprofessional or unreasonable conduct to the committee’s ethics policy.
“I’ve also contacted the California Association of Bond Oversight Committees to lodge a formal complaint with them and asked for guidance on what we do regarding the recent racist email sent by a member of the CBOC to the community,” Cloutier said. “I’m very interested to know from our board, what they propose that we do in this situation and how we deal with it.”
Aside from the divisiveness regarding the recall, there was one agenda item that everyone in attendance seemed to agree on, which was about how the board proposes to amend the way it handles public comments.
Hurley said that she had initially talked to the district’s legal team who suggested that the board amend the bylaws that govern how the board holds public comments by increasing the time allotted for comments from 20 minutes to 30 minutes.
While everyone appeared to agree with extending the time, people who spoke on the item did not agree with the other recommendation to have people submit public speaker cards only at the beginning of the meeting, rather than before each item is brought up as it has been in the past.
Sunol resident and parent Chris Bobertz said he didn’t agree with the recommendation because even with his work offices being in Pleasanton, he was still late to the Feb. 20 meeting, which wouldn’t have allowed him to speak if the bylaws were amended.
“I wouldn’t have been able to come up here three times, so yeah to me, I don’t think that is the way to go and I would recommend keeping it similar to how it is,” Bobertz said.
He also said he didn’t like how the amendment recommends that speakers can’t give up their time to others.
Others also suggested holding special town hall style meetings like the district did during the pandemic so that people could speak on singular subjects. Jergensen added that while the goal isn’t to stay too late, he thinks continuing to try out having one community speaker portion at the beginning of the meeting and one at the end — like they did during last week’s meeting — is one possible way to move forward.
Hurley said that she appreciated the input and that she will be bringing everyone’s comments back to the legal team before returning to the board for any final recommendations and decisions.
