Letter to the editor: School district needs to reconsider mask mandates
To the editor,
Superintendent Curt Dubost and President Chris Arend need to step down
–On Feb. 1, I submitted a request to the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District asking for the face mask policy to be reviewed and altered to allow students, parents, staff, and visitors to have broad exemptions around face masks.
Various community leaders were involved in the drafting and commenting on the agenda item. I submitted it under the bylaws of the board and believed it would be added to the agenda without difficulty. In my experience, doing so is typically a very routine process at many government boards.
That was not my experience with the local school board. I did not expect to find a conservative board president, Chris Arend, curiously attempting to claim veto power over the proposed agenda item in an effort to prevent the community’s representatives from voting on this at a public meeting. Usually, conservatives try to do the opposite.
The bylaws of PRJUSD allow the board president no such veto power. The bylaws of PRJUSD allow for the public to add items to the agenda provided that items are timely and within the scope of the board. My proposed agenda item was both timely and within the scope of the board.
Timeliness and scope are to be determined by the district’s agenda committee. Three days after my routine submission, the president of the board informed me of the reasons that he had determined this matter of face masks was outside the scope of the board, rather than present the matter to his colleagues on the agenda committee to determine.
The board president is granting himself a veto power that does not exist, while the superintendent appears to have teamed up with him in preventing this matter from being seen by other board members.
Part of my passion on this subject springs from my professional work. I am the author of Face Masks Hurt Kids, a 500-page deep dive on the science of how mandatory mask policies are not neutral on the health and well-being of the wearer but are quantifiably harmful. This book relies on hundreds of studies, has 40 pages of footnotes, and over 800 scientific citations.
Face masks hurt those who wear them. That is what the best science unequivocally says. Wearing face masks hurts everyone, and doing so hurts the sick, the elderly, and children the worst.
Understandably, given my understanding of the subject matter, I have not remained silent, but have encouraged the school board and other governmental bodies to revisit their policies on mask mandates.
It is not tolerable for the mask mandates to continue in this community for another day. Regardless of what the media claims, the best science of the last two years shows that face masks do not work, and they cause harm to the wearer. We cannot stop there, though. We cannot stop at ending the health mandates. There needs to be accountability for those who have forced them on others. These people can no longer be allowed to hold public roles of trust.
With the PRJUSD Board of Trustees hesitant to stand up to this overreach by Superintendent Curt Dubost and President Chris Arend, I have retained an attorney to stand up for the community against this abuse of power.
Allan Stevo
Don’t think I’m whining. I’m not, because I realize something very important — It’s not about me. The truth of the matter is that corrupt behavior like this harms a community. If this overstep by Dubost and Arend can happen to me, it can happen to other members of the public. This behavior has to be put to a stop, here and now. No one in the community should be forced to hire an attorney to get a board to follow its own rules. That expectation is preposterous.
Some may say, “This is a very minor matter for a board president to ignore the policies he swore to uphold.” This is no minor matter. This is the precise kind of behavior that a grand jury investigation of the district pointed to as a serious problem in this district — a lack of oversight, as well as an overly chummy relationship between elected officials and their subordinates. This is the exact kind of behavior that numerous members of this school board ran for office to remedy. With an annual budget pushing toward $100 million, anyone who cares about the community cannot want a board president and a supervisor to be thick-as-thieves. It is a recipe for disaster.
Following a grand jury investigation of the school board, a November 2020 report from the San Luis Obispo Grand Jury, commented about such cronyism on the board as a key ingredient to the mismanagement of the past:
“Conflict of interest, nepotism, and cronyism, real or imagined, created distrust and suspicion.”
Cronyism — that’s when you let two pals treat a 7,000-student school district like it was their weekend winemaking project.
The grand jury report, entitled “Paso Robles School District: A Cautionary Tale,” goes on to warn of the behavior of a previous administration and the need for checks on the behavior of the superintendent and administration: “A proper system of checks and balances was not evident during the superintendent’s tenure (2014-2018). The Board of Trustees, as a body, followed the direction of the superintendent, most often without dissent.”
The grand jury actually calls for the board to tell the superintendent “No!” more often. That is pretty hard to do when the president of the board is covering for the superintendent, breaking laws and bylaws, and hiding the details of that misfeasance from the rest of the board.
Some of the same cronyistic behavior that left the school district in a state of financial disaster appears to continue at PRJUSD.
President Arend and Superintendent Dubost appear to have more of a social relationship than a professional one. The community needs two distanced professionals in those two important positions, and the attempt to silence the community and the other six of their elected representatives on this mask policy is only the latest example of why that is a problem.
Reporter Camille De Vaul writing for Paso Robles Press wrote about the almost unbelievable grand jury report, “The report reads like a fictional story; however, it explains the events in detail that led to the school districts’ financial crisis.”
This is not to say that there are not commendable things about Chris Arend. There are many commendable things — including his firm stance and public opposition to Critical Race Theory that has achieved national recognition. However, it is worth noting that while Board President Arend has publicly opposed Critical Race Theory on paper, he is actively overseeing a school district with classrooms that continue to teach Critical Race Theory. It is easy to talk, but the students of this community need action. His actions have shown an unwillingness to do more than talk. And now, with his attempt to block this policy review by the board, his actions are speaking louder than his words — his actions show that he clearly, fully supports this mask craziness and vaccine craziness of the past two years.
Arend, in a Feb. 4 email to me, claimed for himself broad powers that neither state law nor board bylaws permit him.
In a response letter dated Feb. 4, my attorney points out that the heart of the matter is a procedural one in which Arend entirely skipped over the agenda committee and decided for himself what the public gets to hear and what the board gets to vote on:
“The clear violation of policies suffered by my client is a violation of the fiduciary obligation of board members. The fiduciary duties of board members are a duty of care, a duty of loyalty, a duty of good faith, a duty to obey the law, a duty of oversight, and a duty of disclosure. Inherent in the fiduciary duty to loyalty is the responsibility to faithfully execute the written policies of the board. Such capricious behavior by the district violates the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection, and their right to petition the government to redress grievances.”
With health mandate compliance waning, and with a spate of pro-mandate California and national politicians being recently photographed unmasked, this proposal has wide community support on the topic.
On this particular topic, I am supported by approximately 200 students, teachers, staff, parents, and community members, and this concern could have just as easily been brought forward by any one of them. It is not appropriate for the board to react to this community with such rebuffing of concerns. To do so is against their bylaws and against state law.
The hands of many community members have been tied by Arend. Many who care about this topic refuse to wear a mask and the allegedly anti-mask board president has gone out of his way to very strictly enforce Governor Newsom’s mask guidance, thereby silencing a wide portion of the local population on this matter. This does not even begin to address the horrific forced masking of students. Make no mistake about this, Chris Arend has made himself Newsom’s local enforcer, while saying to everyone exactly what the Germans at Nuremberg said after World War II: “I’m just following orders.”
That’s disgusting and this community deserves better.
Though the district had previously provided exemptions around the mandates, on Oct. 12, 2021, when unmasked members of the public entered the building to attend that night’s meeting, Trustee Arend stopped the meeting without notice or explanation, rushed to the back of the room, and requested that law enforcement intervene to remove approximately one dozen members of the public from the room who were not wearing a face mask.
Trustee Arend, for months, has said one thing while the voters were watching, yet behind the scenes has behaved very differently. His words say one thing, but his actions show full support for the health mandates and full support for CRT.
He is overseeing a school district in which Critical Race Theory and other divisive and radical topics are constantly pushed upon students by teachers.
His words on the topic have been excellent. His actions on the topic have been awful, arguably even hypocritical. Consequently, Arend is the facade that allows the community to think all is well at the schools, while they are run as indoctrination machines. That behavior is a lot more astroturf than grassroots.
I am calling on Trustee Arend and Superintendent Dubost to resign immediately. No matter what the excuse, if they cannot run this school district in accordance with the laws of this state and the bylaws of the board, they need to step down. If they do not step down, I call on the board to remove them.
There are more than enough qualified individuals in this community ready to replace them.
On Dec. 7, 2021, during a meeting to interview new board applicants, the community saw approximately one dozen worthy applicants who stepped forward to do the work of the board, legally, ethically, and within the bylaws. There is plenty of interest to serve on the board and administration, and Chris Arend and Curt Dubost have shown this community that they are not fit to lead during these challenging times that require grit, determination, and a reliance on core values.
Once you let two buddies break the small laws, it is only a matter of time until they start breaking the big laws.
Time for them both to go.
Paso Strong. Dubost Weak.
Paso Stong. Arend Very Weak.
Signed,
Allan Stevo
Community activist and author of “Face Masks in One Lesson” and “Face Masks Hurt Kids”
Editor’s note: Opinion pieces and letters to the editor are the personal opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Paso Robles Daily News or its staff. We welcome letters from local residents regarding relevant local topics. To submit one, click here.
