On January 16 of this year the Pride flag was unceremoniously taken down from the flag pole at Sonoma Valley High School by a unilateral action of David Bell, the President of the School Board. Abusing the authority of his position on the Board, Bell acted solely at his own discretion when he directed High School Principal Molly Kiss to remove the flag, which had flown every day since first hoisted in a public ceremony by a student group in May, 2019. That action had the full support of then-principal Justin Mori and Superintendent Socorro Shiels. The outcry over its removal from students, both gay and straight, was immediate, anguished, outraged. Community members followed. Those same voices spoke movingly during public comment before the June 18 school board meeting, where the Pride Flag was the first Agenda item.
Many public voices, including the co-president of the Valley of the Moon Teachers Association, had called for Bell’s resignation. Bell did make a public apology for his action, but despite many calls for his fellow trustees to at least censure the President for this egregious unilateral act, the Board did not address his misuse of the power with which they had entrusted him.
In that same month, however, our five Trustees – David Bell, Anne Ching, Gerardo Guzmán, Catarina Landry and Jason Lehman – made an outstanding decision in their choice of Jason Sutter as the new superintendent for the Sonoma Valley Unified School District.
Starting his job the first of March, the new superintendent made the wise decision to spend time delving into the Pride flag issue and to bring a recommendation to the Board of Trustees in June.
Dr. Sutter made a superb presentation to the Board, covering the history and future of the Pride Flag at the high school, and focused on capturing the student voice. He went first to the high school Leadership, and that group crafted the questions to be posed to the students about the issue. A remarkable 57 percent of the student body – 571 out of 1036 students – responded to the resulting survey. Dr. Sutter also surveyed neighboring school districts for their flag practices.
Ahead of the Board’s discussion, Trustee Jason Lehman reminded the public that, because of the Brown Act, he and his fellow trustees had never had a discussion as a group on the question of the Pride flag. Although the student responses did not give a definitive solution, almost 40 percent of the high school students supported the Pride flag because it makes LGBTQ+ students feel “included, welcome, represented and safe.” The sobering statistic that 27 percent of the LGBTQ+ students had seriously considered suicide in the last twelve months, compared to 4 percent of all other students, made a huge impact on Trustees Guzman, Lehman and Ching. Over three times as many LGBTQ+ students as non- LGBTQ+ students were bullied and harassed over the past year. Trustee Guzmán eloquently spoke to the flying of the Pride flag as an affirmation of equity, distinguished from equality.
Superintendent Sutter’s recommendation is that four flags – U.S., California, Pride Flag and School flags – continue to be flown throughout the year, with the possibility of other flags flying alongside the Pride and School flags. We hope that the Trustees follow their strong decision to select Dr. Sutter to lead the District with a strong affirmation of his recommended flag policy.
–The Sun Editorial Board
Dr Sutter’s full presentation to the board may be seen HERE
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