Soccer, sardines and selling school names

This month’s meeting of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees began on a note distinctly free of recent tensions. Starting with a room packed with red-jacketed girl soccer players, there to cheer on El Verano’s Students of the Year, Alejandra Alverez and Jose Garcia, the agenda moved on to an illuminating bit of public comment from Lauren Ayers, who has been on the snack committee and is concerned with the lack in Americans of Omega 3’s. “I’m recommending we have sardines available for school breakfasts and lunches,” she said, adding, “I wish our district had the guts to ban chocolate milk.”
Lynn Abate-Johnson, representing the Sonoma Valley Youth Soccer Association, urged people to remember soccer. “Even though it’s baseball season,” she said, “the soccer season starts in August. Anyone can go on line now and register. There’s going to be an approved flyer going out to all the schools. There’s going to be a gear exchange program. They’re doing free coach training. It’s a wonderful place for children – gets them off the streets. We want a lot of children registered for soccer. So far, we have 1200.”
One arresting piece of business was the question of whether the district should consider selling the names of schools as a fund-raising devise. “I’ve heard of selling benches or bricks,” said trustee Nicole Abaté Ducarroz, but not a whole school.” Still, she thought the idea might merit consideration. Trustee Helen Marsh said, “I would hope we don’t get so desperate we have to sell our names. People have always named schools for people who have been important to the community. I think it’s a sad commentary.”