Letter to the editor: School board candidate responds to criticism
To the editor,
In reply to a letter from Lance Gannon, Paso Robles Joint Union School Board trustee, dated Oct. 26, I’m not quite sure how his letter can be claimed to be the opinion of a private citizen when he is an active sitting member of the school board and is supporting the current school board president for re-election.
Be that as it may, my opinion is that if an idea presented by a board member is a good idea I am for it, if it is a bad idea I am against it. There may be times when there is no “win-win” solution or “compromise” for a bad idea.
I’m not sure how one defines an “…extreme conservative ideology” as applied to me in the letter; however, I do recognize bad ideas when I see them, and the newly installed LGBTQ+ section of the library is a bad idea especially when the administration is claiming to not be indoctrinating the students.
My stand is that these books are inappropriate for K-12 students especially when books such as “Two Boys Kissing“, “Queer: The Ultimate LGBT Guide For Teens“, “The Book of Delights” are currently in the library as of Aug. 8. I am not saying that they should “burned” or “banned” but that they should be removed from campus to another setting such as the Paso Robles Public Library, or Cuesta College, or similar.
Let’s get back to basic teaching, especially when the percentage of students meeting the standard in English Language Arts has dropped to 40.8% in PRJUSD and only 29% in math and you are worried about not having an LGBTQ+ library?
And teaching gender-affirming care and transgender ideology? Let’s do a survey of parents and see what they think. And for full disclosure, I am running for school board in district 1 against Chris Arend and for me there can be no “compromise” or a “win-win” solution when it comes to our kids.
Peter Byrne
40-year Paso Robles resident and candidate for the PRJUSD school board
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