WakeUp Sonoma: We Are Not Giving Up
By Lisa Storment
For the past nine months, this board has held the community captive with threats to implement policy that would result in permanent removal of the pride flag currently flying at the High School, while bypassing community input on new policies, and without ensuring that mental health safeguards are in place for those who will be impacted. The policy would also restrict pride flags from flying at any of the other schools in the district. The Gender-Sexuality Awareness (GSA) students of SVHS reached out to Wake UP Sonoma in February of this year for help when Bell unilaterally decided to remove the flag from the campus. His story about how the flag came down in the first place, is inconsistent and changes, at first taking responsibility, and now backtracking and putting the responsibility on school staff. We have also verified through California Public Record Act (CPRA) requests that it was in fact Bell who ordered the flag taken down.
Thursday night a serious injustice was carried out at the school board meeting. The School Board, with a 3-2 vote, took down the pride flag, and the decision was made to only fly the US and State flag. The students are devastated. And we will still be there to support them because, in the absence of the visible show of safety and inclusion at the high school, they still need to know that we are there and support them. We cannot let them feel abandoned or unseen. We do not feel that the three community members who voted to take down the flag truly represent this community. As SVUSD Trustee Anne Ching stated, she voted in a way that represented her district because she listened to them. We had hoped that all trustees would follow suit.
Some of the statements made at this board meeting by attendees were incredibly hateful, transphobic, and homophobic and should not have been tolerated because, truly, it was hate speech. These comments were made in a public space where students who are being directly targeted were listening. The fact the board voted the way they did, reinforces the presence of this kind of attitude in our community, rather than supporting students, and showing them they are valued, seen and supported. We are going backwards in time.
Although Trustee David Bell claims he reached out for a meeting with Wake UP Sonoma, we did not receive a direct request for a meeting from him. If it was his intention to meet with us, then he should have directly reached out to us, rather than trying to communicate through a third party. What we really want is for him to meet with and listen to the students. We are not sure why this was even mentioned at this public board meeting. This is not about Wake UP Sonoma.
This is far from over. Ultimately, we know that the kids will prevail, and the flag will fly again. We are not giving up.
Comment by Lisa Storment, President of WakeUP Sonoma.
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