Thursday 25 February 2021

County officials fill vacant seats on Oakley school board after hot mic incident

OAKLEY, Calif. (KRON) - An interim school board at Oakley Union Elementary School District is picking up the pieces after last week's fallout when several board members were caught making disturbing remarks about parents during a hot mic situation.

On Thursday, county officials filling in continued an appointment process for one of the vacant seats.

One week after the entire Oakley Union Elementary School Board resigned, fill-in board members are left to play catch up and fill the empty seats.

This comes after three former trustees made comments about parents during a virtual session last week, not knowing they were being recorded.

Parents still infuriated by the comments but even more mad now that the focus is taken away from their children and put on the board.

“Definitely a big distraction. I think that the parents have probably lost a lot of faith in our district,” parent Michelle Pimentel said.

"One step forward, two steps back. With the board stepping down, we now have to focus on this first and it's like, it's sad. It's really sad," Valerie Ferreira said.

During a special meeting on Thursday, the interim board chose to move forward with an appointment process to fill an area two trustee position that the former board previously selected a candidate for, however, they declined after last week's mishap.

At its next meeting on March 3, the interim board will allow public input on whether they should hold an election or appoint new trustees for the remaining positions.

“Stick with the Interim board and move forward. Let's get the kids back in school and then bring our focus back on voting in a new board,” Ferreira said.

While Valerie Ferreira who has two kids in the school district wants the school board to move this process as fast as possible in order to get her kids back into their classrooms, Michelle Pimentel who already moved her daughter out of the district because of previous leadership hopes the fill-in board will take these next steps carefully.

“I have been to school board meetings and I feel like nothing was really being heard in Oakley and that's why I moved my daughter to Brentwood. I'm hoping that the people that come in now will be heard," Pimentel said. "I do think they should have a public vote in light of all that has happened."



from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3stGaiq


No comments:

Post a Comment