๐USD ๐๐๐ก๐จ๐จ๐ฅ ๐๐จ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ง๐๐จ๐ซ๐ฌ๐๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐; ๐๐๐ฌ ๐จ๐ง ๐๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ฒ
In theory, school board elections are supposed to be apolitical and hopefully about education and students. Weโve all heard horror stories of school boards being turned into partisan and cultural belief-centered boards with the focus on making statements instead of the needs of their students.
On the whole, weโve been fortunate to miss out on that bit of the worst of political theatre in Chico.
Keeping that in mind, this election cycle has been a challenge.
Itโs been terribly disappointing to see campaigns run on anti-science rhetoric, fear mongering, insults by campaign consultants and one candidate (Carrie Krueger) referring to herself as a teacher on her "About the Candidate" info in the Countywide Voter Information Guide when she in fact is not. To attempt to confuse voters by claiming to be a teacher when you are actually a parent who homeschools her child part-time should be considered fraud.
To be clear, we have an actual teacher (Dalby for CUSD) running for school board and sheโs a science teacher!
Both Matt Tennis and Carrie Krueger have built well-funded campaigns with a tremendous amount of signage but not a lot of specifics as to what they would do as school board members.
In a time when we are looking at a global economic collapse and an artificially inflated stock market, understanding the school board budget will be crucially important.
In addition, working with the CUTA and fully understanding the details of collective bargaining while building and maintaining a positive and productive relationship between teachers and the district is a necessity as an already acquired skill set.
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Given his concerning behavior on the Butte County Water Commission, pertaining to him sharing private information at a community event concerning the Paradise-Chico Intertie (see articles here and here)and his months-long push with the school district for school-time assemblies to recruit for Boy Scouts while refusing to understand district and state policy, it's clear that he is not the level-headed, open-minded, educational equity candidate who we need.
Additionally, his desire to use his Open Schools Coalition as a bully pulpit was exactly why we need more science education and counselors in schools. You can see a perfect example of his worrying arrogance here: Tennis Performance
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Ms. Krueger is not a teacher, although she represented herself as one on the Countywide Voter Information Guide. This fraudulent claim is enough for us to vote no on her.
We asked her what her profession and education are when we received a campaign cold call from her several weeks ago. We were informed that she homeschools her child part time through a charter school that is not governed by the CUSD school board.
She has no stake whatsoever in our community schools.
When asked why she wanted to run for the CUSD school board if she has no personal links to it and her child has never attended a CUSD school, we got no thorough answer.
This was extremely concerning. With few answers, we looked into Ms. Kruegerโs social media and was terribly disappointed as a parent at the posts with homophobia, transphobia, anti-BLM statements, and overall ugliness.
Additionally, the campaign manager/volunteer that Ms. Krueger brought on to help lead her campaign has instead run a harassment campaign against Chico citizens. This should not be acceptable behavior in any race, but in a school board race
when children are involved, itโs truly unacceptable.
ALL of our children deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, not just the ones Ms. Krueger finds palatable. Education equity and full, broad understanding of the Ed code would be
lost with this candidate and her thinly veiled hate speech rhetoric.
We're not sure whose family Ms. Krueger is advocating for, since she listed Family Advocate as her other occupation, but it seems itโs not the majority of Chicoans.
Chico students, parents and teachers deserve much better.
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On a MUCH more positive note, we have two outstanding candidates that we are thrilled to endorse.
One brings a wealth of experience and even-handed, strong budget guidance, while the other brings crucially important real world teaching experience working with students, parents, teachers and administration.
Together both of these candidates will create a much stronger and cohesive board that both families and teachers can have faith in.
In these two candidates we feel all students will be supported.
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Linda Hovey has long term experience in school administration, collective bargaining, accounting and handling the minutiae of large budgets.
Not exciting stuff on a billboard but incredibly important at this moment in time when our national economy is in freefall and our local unemployment numbers continue to rise.
Ms. Hovey has continually shown calm, positive and professional leadership while asking difficult questions and searching out results that benefit students.
Ms. Hovey has done an outstanding job of working with the assorted charter schools in our district and bringing them into the fold to create better communication and working relationships,
again ultimately benefiting all of our kids.
Now more than ever in these uncertain times, we need knowledge and experience to guide the education of our children in the Chico community and a firm hand to monitor the fiscal health of
the district funds and thoughtfully weigh every decision with the best interests of students first. Linda Hovey has these qualities in spades.
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Ms. Dalby is a science teacher within Chico Unified and a teacher leader.
Her love of the sciences is infectious when you speak with her and it's easy to understand why her students adore her.
This year more than any other has made it clear that we need far more science and technology understanding in our daily lives and having Ms. Dalby serve on the school board would be of great benefit.
After watching months worth of meetings it's clear we are missing current educators voices on the board. The CUSD school board desperately needs a strong voice like Ms. Dalbyโs that understands the real day experience of students, teachers and parents.
Ms Dalby understands how important a proper Individual Education Plan is to a special needs student or a 504 Plan to a medically fragile student, or the staffing of trauma counselors and a simple hot meal.
Having more voices on the school board that thoroughly understand these issues would make a huge impact for ALL students when planning a school shut down in a pandemic or the reopening.
Ms. Dalby has walked those school halls, held those planning meetings, held zoom classes and in person classes; she gets it.
We need her to now convey all of that on the school board.
Ms. Dalby has presented an outstanding and achievable seven point plan on how she will bring true equity and inclusivity to all of our students.
This is crucial to all students success. Ms. Dalbyโs creative approach of empowering the whole child, means giving more time to creative outlets to develop their sense of self. This makes the educational experience more meaningful to them, providing pathways to greater academic success.
