Valley of the Moon Teachers union co-presidents, Laura Hoban and Richelle Ryan, delivered this message – covering past missteps, crises and present challenges – to the Trustees at the regular February 12 meeting of the Sonoma Valley Unified School Board.
On behalf of the Valley of the Moon Teachers Association, we want to welcome Jason Sutter as our new superintendent. We are hopeful this moment signals a return to a district that truly centers students and values educators. We want to rebuild trust. We want collaboration. And yes — we are looking to you with hope, because right now this district needs leadership that can steady the ground beneath us.
But tonight, we also need to be honest.
Teachers — along with our brothers and sisters in CSEA (CaliforniaSchool Employees Association) — are at a breaking point.
In just nine years, this district has cycled through ten superintendents. In normal conditions, that kind of instability harms students, families and staff. But these past several years have been anything but normal around here.
We have seen the board vote to close three schools, vote to eliminate almost 100 faculty and staff positions, and fumbled contract negotiations to the point of a 98-percent strike authorization by the teachers.
Through it all, we have seen the board fail to take responsibility, fail to take good advice and fail to demonstrate an understanding of how to work together with our school communities to make better decisions. And that was all before the most recent series of decisions that are somehow unprecedented in the damage they have inflicted.
To briefly recap the latest display of mismanagement: In the fall, we asked you to slow the closure of an elementary school – especially as promised savings from previous closures failed to materialize – but you moved forward anyway and voted to close Prestwood. Following this decision, once rumors of a charter petition began to circulate, we again reiterated why we would postpone closure if savings were not going to be realized, as this was the number one reason for closure in the first place. And then, despite all of the warnings and findings about the financial and educational harm it posed to the district and its students, the Board approved a charter school — diverting more than $2 million annually from our district. And to cap it off, you voted with less than 30 seconds of discussion to award that Charter School the site you had just closed.
And now here we are, standing in front of you on a night where you are being presented with two resolutions seeking to cut $4.3 million in salaries through the elimination of 17.8 certificated, and more than 23 classified positions, and an additional 4 unfilled positions, including every librarian in the district.
Given that you’ve already cut all of the reading intervention positions, and now you’re effectively shuttering our school libraries, we respectfully ask that you not talk to us about reading scores anymore, you’ve lost that right after tonight. You can’t make academic demands on students and then cut all of the resources and support that make those demands achievable.
So now we’re asking you: What do you plan to tell the community tonight about why teachers are the ones to bear this burden? Why are teachers and staff paying the price for your questionable decisions that we warned against time and time again? Why are we being asked to absorb the cost of a charter school you authorized against the advice of your leadership team?
Our ask to you is simple and urgent: Stop using a hatchet — and start using a scalpel. If we are ever going to see the benefit of consolidation, you need to go slower and be smarter.
The district’s recent audit report has some findings that might help point you in the right direction. Finding number one revealed that, for at least three years in a row, the district has had a lopsided ratio of administrators-to-teachers. In 2024 there were 5 excess administrators. Last year there were 6, and this year there are 4. This resulted in a fine to the district of almost $100,000 last year, and we will be fined again this year, probably more than $100,000. Maybe instead of cutting so many teachers, we should think about keeping some around to help with the ratio and avoid costly fines.
This would also help us with finding number two: As set forth in California Education Code section 41372, the district is supposed to spend at least 55 percent of its total budget on classroom teachers’ salaries. But last year we fell short of that mark by over $5 million, or 7.5 percent. Instead of seeking to come into compliance on that state requirement, our district is requesting a waiver from SCOE to avoid spending the required amount on teachers. Even if we tried, we couldn’t invent a better example of the complete disregard for the educational priorities of this district. And it truly begs the question – if you’re not spending that $5 million on teachers, what exactly ARE you spending it on?
Because it won’t matter if there’s a surplus, if we have packed classrooms.
It won’t matter if there’s a surplus if we have no intervention teachers, music teachers or art teachers.
It won’t matter if there’s a surplus if kids are unsafe.
It won’t matter if there’s a surplus if we have empty libraries.
It won’t matter if there’s a surplus if we have nothing to offer our students and their families.
Superintendent Sutter, it feels inevitable at this point that you are going to be asked to play the part of a superhero in bringing this district back together after all of this carnage. But we have seen time and time again in this district that when Board governance breaks down, no superintendent can succeed, even a superhero.
President Bell, your tenure as president, while brief, has been one marked by grave governance failures. You haven’t availed yourself of the governance training offered to school board members, so we would like to take this opportunity to point out to you that the title of President does not empower you to take unilateral actions outside of public meetings and without Board authorization. Not only is this prohibited, it violates established norms, damages public trust, and harms the credibility of this district.
The decision to remove the Dragon Pride flag was more than that, though. It directly overruled the will of the students who organized to mount that flag as a statement and symbol of safety and belonging. Your “apology” after the fact did not demonstrate an understanding of the deep wound this action caused to the very students you are actually here to serve. Not only did you fail to take any real responsibility for this, the attempt to shift blame onto the high school principal for the removal of the flag was unacceptable and it was shameful. This kind of disregard for proper governance cannot continue.
We are calling for your resignation tonight. And if you choose not to resign, we are calling for the rest of the board to censure you for your egregious overstepping of authority.
And further, we are asking this Board to recommit — immediately — to transparent, collective governance, starting with education for each of you on what that actually is.
We are asking for accountability.
We are asking for an end to unilateral decision-making.
We are asking you to govern as a body, in public, with integrity.
Finally, we want to be clear about our contract.
It is still open. Your lead negotiator, HR Director Ugrin, is on vacation right now for three weeks, but we’re ready to come back to the table when you are.
Educators are watching closely.
And we sincerely hope this district is not receiving bad advice — again.Our members want to stay.
Our members want to serve.
Our members want to believe that this district values the people who show up for students every single day. We are your best chance at making the progress we all want to see for our students.
The choices you make now will define whether that trust can be rebuilt — or whether it is lost entirely.
Thank you.
As a member of the community who lives near Prestwood and cares deeply about early education, I was appalled that the school board would close the only elementary school on the east side of Sonoma. That it would lead to a diversion of funds to establish a charter school should have been anticipated by an educated school board, but apparently they didn’t think ahead of where this closure might lead. And, Dan Bell’s unilateral removal of the pride flag at the high school was an egregious overstep of his authority and he should resign. Overriding the students wishes to demonstrate acceptance of all students is a way to stop bullying from starting. Obviously, Bell knows nothing about bullying on campuses or is more interested in foisting his prejudices on the community. School board members should be required to have training, some of it provided by teachers and some even provided by students leaders. Otherwise, we are not going to have school boards that respect the community, its teachers, and the needs of our students. We need a better educated school board for this community.
Excellent, factual recap of the local disgrace otherwise known as the SVUSD Board of Trustees. The list of poor and outright immoral decisions and financial chaos is jaw dropping. Anyone paying attention to the SVUSD drama over the last decade has seen this coming. What was once a smoldering dumpster fire that could have been extinguished by even mediocre leadership and common sense has become an out of control inferno of lies, political shenanigans, and power mad trustees serving nothing but their outsized egos. It’s an unconscionable situation, and as of now, the district will not be able to avoid a state takeover. This board has almost gleefully and blindly driven the SVUSD off a cliff, and there will be no recovery without outside intervention, which at this point is overdue.