Letter: Community needs elected school board members who are not harmful, hateful
To the editor,
– Opponents to the special PRJUSD election are focusing on the potential costs of the special election in order to sidestep the true crux of the issue: the community will not tolerate an unelected school board member who routinely voices harmful, hateful speech towards the very students he is supposed to represent.
Hate and bigotry are never acceptable in governance. On a school board, where the members are entrusted with managing the education priorities of our children—almost all of whom have no say in who sits on the board, hate and bigotry are unanswerable. That is and will continue to be the only valid point worth arguing for in this debate: will the board member work to make education better for every student?
I read recently in a parenting book that “your child cannot afford for you to hold back when taking a stand for their rights” (Lei Wiley-Mydske in Sincerely, Your Autistic Child, 2021). The author was speaking for children on the spectrum, but I believe her words apply to all children in vulnerable and minority groups.
Our children deserve and require our fiercest commitment to preserving and growing their rights. All of our children deserve this, and, yes, I absolutely believe it is worth the estimated costs of the election and more.
Paso Robles is an expensive community in which to live. No one who pays taxes here forgets that the money originates in our own hard work, and none of us wants to see our tax money frivolously spent. This is exactly why the community demands that the school board be populated with democratically elected members who we trust to ethically oversee the district’s multi-million dollar annual budget.
Far more than money, ethics are what is at stake here; ethics and telling our children “I will fight for you because you deserve it. I will fight for you because this is your home.” And that is a fight I will always pick.
Signed,
Lauren Hruska Herrick
Paso Robles, CA
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