Education

On Tuesday afternoon, the Davis Joint Unified School District sent the following letter to parents via email:

“This weekend the Davis Enterprise published a detailed and potentially traumatizing recount of a public pretrial proceeding.  Other media sources, including television, newspaper and social media have also made similar reports,” the letter from Jen McNeil, DJUSD Prevention & Crisis Manager, said.

For several years now the Davis School District has gotten largely a free ride.  The focus was on school funding, cut backs from the state, and preserving programs that have made the school district one of the few to offer an array of critical programs and services to student in times of crisis.

While the public is still willing to support the district with parcel tax money, as the result of another strong showing last November, in the past six months, the district seems to have fallen into misstep.

As an open government advocate, I have always been troubled by personnel confidentiality laws which are ostensibly put in place to protect employees from undue intrusions into private matters, but as often as not actually serve to protect those in power  and wrongdoers from transparency and accountability.

The truth is that whenever I inquire about these types of decision with members of the school board or staff, I get a dizzying array of gymnastics and mixed-martial arts as they adeptly avoid tough questions under the guise of personnel matters.