Notes from the Board Meeting - 10/28/2025
At the last FMSD Board meeting on 10/28/2025 an item of interest was presented and questioned by Board members, after I requested to pull it for discussion:
- Agenda Item 9.06 “Ratification of the 2025-2026 Contract with Partners in School Innovation for Sylvandale”
As I always do before a Board Meeting, I review and research all items that are scheduled for future Board Meeting. Since the Superintendent posts the Board Meeting Agenda at 5 p.m. Friday before the Tuesday’s scheduled Board Meeting, it is sometimes challenging to do research as thoroughly as I would like before the Tuesday Board Meetings.
However, I researched the organization “Partners in School Innovation” as was listed in Agenda Item 9.06 “Ratification of the 2025-2026 Contract with Partners in School Innovation for Sylvandale.” I saw many quotations from staff members and users of this program that caught my attention. I also saw inferences on the site, which I disagreed with. I found out Alum Rock Union School District, our neighboring school district in East San Jose, once had this program in their district but terminated their contract with them years ago. Since Alum Rock has similar demographics to those of Franklin McKinley schools, I was curious why they terminated this program that could potentially, positively support our students. I inquired from Alum Rock, and I was not given a response. Interestingly, a concerned community member in FMSD made the following comments at our Board Meeting on 10.28.2025. They provided quotations from the Partners in School Innovation website, which I put in bold italics. The comments the FMSD community member read to the School Board are provided:
https://www.youtube.com/live/xisLMzIi1UM?si=ldI3rHu2jPKbCUUU
(The Board meeting and the comments can be seen during time frame 46:20 to 53:46)
“Partners in School Innovation” (PSI)
Brainwashing Teachers 10.28.2025 FMSD agenda item 9.06
What is Partners in School Innovation (PSI)? It “supports educators to become equity-focused change agents” (Huh?) and wants to transform teachers by “examining race, class, culture, and power in society, within your own organization, and in yourselves as individuals.” So, PSI thinks FMSD teachers are racists and need to be transformed.
Its coaching focus includes: “Engaging in tough conversations on equity to shift adult mindsets towards inclusivity.” In other words, PSI assumes teachers are wrong, so teachers have to “shift” their mindset, listen to the voices from the students, and let the inmates run the asylum.
PSI trained a San Jose TK to 8 school on anti-bias and anti-racist (ABAR) practices within its curriculum and school culture. So, the teachers were asked to “examine the historical context of educational policies and how the characteristics of white supremacy culture show up in our school system.” The purpose is to make the teachers feel guilty and “look for their own traits associated with white supremacist culture, such as perfectionism and fear, [which] could manifest within school settings.”
A staff member said, “The characteristic that I will be mindful of is perfectionism. I know I tend to be a perfectionist, and I may subconsciously want it from my students. The antidote that I will implement is to praise effort and growth.”
PSI is using Communist self-critique guilt tactics for FMSD teachers to confess their “hidden white supremacy” characteristics. PSI training is a direct insult to teachers and a waste of taxpayers’ money. Instead of encouraging students to pursue excellence, the teachers blame themselves as perfectionists. No wonder FMSD student scores are failing, because teachers are trained to feel guilty for asking students to be perfect. Some teachers feel uncomfortable with PSI but choose to keep silent for fear of being labeled “racist”. Alum Rock had already abandoned the PSI contract years ago, why does FMSD continue the contract Alum Rock dumped? The board needs to spend resources on building up your students, not a $20,000 program to punch down, humiliate, insult and demean your teachers by assuming they all are biased and racist. Do not spend taxpayer money on brainwashing teachers and making them feel guilty.
**Board members expressed they were insulted with the usage of the phrase used by the Community Member ‘the inmates are running the asylum.’ The Board members said that was demeaning our students. Apparently, they do not understand the meaning and usage of the idiom/figurative expression. I’ve included the meaning of the idiom/figurative expression as it was used in the above text.
“The phrase "the inmates run the asylum" is a figurative expression used to describe a chaotic or dysfunctional situation where those who are unqualified or meant to be supervised and have taken control. It implies a breakdown of authority and proper leadership.
Key implications of the phrase:
Reversal of roles: The people who are typically subject to institutional rules are now the ones creating and shaping them.
Ineffective leadership: The people in charge are shown to be incapable of handling their responsibilities.
Chaotic results: The lack of competent control leads to dysfunction, bad decisions, and poor outcomes.”
Board Discussion Regarding “Agenda Item 9.06 “Ratification of the 2025-2026 Contract with Partners in School Innovation for Sylvandale”
Trustee Cooper: “Yes, I just had a few (questions/comments). I read that site (Partners in School Innovation), and I’ve actually seen the quotations that were referenced by the community member. They actually are true. I was curious at first, presuming we have lots of communication with Alum Rock itself, so I was curious, and I reached out to Alum Rock already and the Board President there was not serving when this was pulled. Do you know, Superintendent Cruz (why the program was pulled)?”
Superintendent Cruz: “I cannot speak for why they made the decision. I can only speak to what our continued partnership with them has been before my tenure here and during my tenure here.”
Trustee Cooper: “Thank you. I did see some alarming things on this site, and I don’t know if the other Board members have checked this site and seen these factual statements that were made and were brought before the Board tonight by the community member, so as a teacher myself, I’m concerned with teachers made to feel guilty about their race that they’ve been given or not given by nature, by God. But to listen to the community, to listen specifically to the children and let that change how we are and make us feel we are racist, and I don’t appreciate that in any program, telling me that I’m racist or that I’m potentially a racist person and need to change my behavior. I hear and I’ve read this site, and I’ve seen these quotations (and inferences), and I encourage you to do the same. Well, I’m not going to vote for this tonight. I encourage you to do that as well. Do more research before you approve this.
Superintendent Cruz interjected (I was addressing the Board members, not the Superintendent, who is not a voting member of the School Board). “So I respectfully would ask the community members and yourself to do the same, because in no way does this organization make our staff feel that (they) are attacked in any way, so I can tell you that this organization has worked with our schools in developing best practices around instruction, making sure that the data that I hear you speak about all the time and making sure that instruction, our current instruction is meeting the needs of our students. So, I could also take offense to the community member’s comment that by listening to the students, that we/you characterize them as inmates.** That is totally offensive to our students and to our community. So, I think there is a lot to be said about when you look at things, umm, that west side or some other place without actually looking at the program and the people that we are contracting with and the work that we’re doing in our school district.”
Trustee Cooper: “And I would like to respectfully say, we had this discussion, I believe two board meetings ago, when there was another organization that we were considering bringing in, and I believe the Board, with my exception, voted to bring that program in, although they said in their own previous newsletter “They brought drag queens into their community.” So we’re looking at, although I hear what you’re saying…what I’m saying is factual, and you can go the site and read their own writing and their own quotations what their mission, what they have done, and what they’re proud of what they’ve done, but we say ‘we’re not going to do that here.’ But that’s the program(s)/the organization(s)) we’re bringing in here.”
Superintendent Cruz: ‘I’ll clarify. Like I said at the last meeting, the organization has not brought drag queens to our schools or any schools. That was a community event that they held in that situation. So, I want to make sure the record is clear that when I said that it was not bringing it to our schools. That was not the event at any school.”
Trustee Cooper: “It was a program (organization), and that’s what I said. It is a program, just like this is a program (that should not be brought into our district).
Trustee Steven Sanchez: “I just think the fear tactic that Trustee Cooper is using is getting old at this point. I mean there is nowhere in the website itself that says the intent of this program is to make teachers feel guilty. If you can quote that out for us where that is, I think you’re misunderstanding the purpose of this program. So, if you can show us the quote on there where it shows us that is the intent of the program, please let us know right now!”
Trustee Cooper: “And if that’s your wish, go ahead; let’s table this, and I’ll bring back the quotations from the site (and the citations), and I’ll show you that.”
Trustee Steven Sanchez interrupted: ‘…well, you know that already….and you’ve already looked at the site, though, right?! So, where’s it on the site?!”
Trustee Cooper: “Again, you say bring it right now. Give me some time. It’s already been quoted from the community member, quoted. I don’t believe the community member is lying. So if you want more time, give it to the next Board Meeting, or two more Board Meetings.”
Trustee Steven Sanchez: “I’ve done my research. I don’t need more time!”
Trustee Cooper: “And I have seen the quotations, and I say they are factual.”
Trustee Rodiguez: “I couldn’t agree with you more, Superintendent Cruz and Steven with your comments. And Trustee Cooper says he wants more time and that he explicitly read the website this and that. He is lying. It is a complete lie and it’s false! And we have a community member….I don’t appreciate the lies that we are told to our Superintendent and the work they do at our District Office…This Board has unanimously approved this contract (with this program/organization) from the beginning….and I don’t know why we’re spending this time discussing racism and even the ridiculous comment about communism! That is totally ridiculous! And we do not, that does not belong in our school district, and I don’t appreciate it! And I am offended as well by people who are claiming that this program teaches racism, when they’re the people who are racist!”
My Comments: In my 22 years teaching special education in the public high schools, beginning in Oakland, continuing in Livermore, in Campbell, and the last 16 years in San Jose, I have never been called a racist. From the very beginning of my teaching profession, when I was the only caucasian in my classroom with all African-American boys to where I am currently teaching in San Jose, I have always been the ethnic minority in my classrooms. I have thrived and have been focused, not on the color of the skin of my students, but on the individual needs, educational, social, and emotional. The accolades I have received from parents and guardians of my students for focusing on their education and not the plethora of social issues on the periphery have been many!
The mention by Trustee Rodriguez, several times since I’ve been serving on the FMSD School Board, and the inference by other Board members, that I am racist is absurd and insulting! To make matters worse, the blatant accusation against a community member that they are racist, too, is unacceptable! Because one person, another person of color, expresses their opinions and facts as they have identified to be different from Trustee Rodriguez, and any other trustee, is NOT a reason to malign them. The community member Trustee Rodriguez, as well as Trustee Steven Sanchez in the past, has questioned about sharing their voice in our FMSD School Board meetings is a Speech Pathologist who serves many of her clients in our FMSD, knows and interacts with many residents of our FMSD, and has regularly attended FMSD parent and school events in the 3 years I’ve served as Trustee on the FMSD School Board. She has interacted extensively with FMSD parents and children. So their allegations that the community member has no place to speak at our FMSD Board meetings is again, unfounded, false, and not true. The community member they malign comes from Communist China, and much of her family is still there. She knows far more about communism than Trustee Rodriguez or Trustee Steven Sanchez will ever know about communism! Again, their remarks about her knowledge of communism and her concern that FMSD doesn’t indoctrinate our children with those types of ideologies are ignorant at best!
My focus in the three years I have served on the FMSD School Board has been aligned with our mission statement: “to ensure all 8th-grade students graduate with the skills and knowledge to be ready for a college preparatory high school curriculum and to pursue university/career paths and lifelong learning.” Unfortunately, it seems that the focus of the Board Members Rudy Rodriguez, George Sanchez, and his son, Steven Sanchez has been social issues, taking away parents’ voice and right to raise their children the ways they feel best, and continuing to push for things in our schools that are best taught and discussed at home (such as gender identity, sexually related topics, depression, anxiety, etc…). The focus in our schools should be education and preparing our students for high school. The issues I have brought to the attention of the other Board members have been programs/organizations that promote segregation of African-American/Black only students from the other population (which is illegal per Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), the potential for drag queens to interact with our children in our schools and/or community (which many FMSD parents oppose), and to challenge our teachers to change or alter their attitudes because they might be racist or biased. The focus of our FMSD School Board of Education and the Superintendent of our FMSD Schools MUST be on the education of our children, all children of all ethnicities as they are, each with individual needs we MUST meet! There is NO room for teaching our students to dislike or distrust children and adults who are different than they are! Let’s get back to Education! The previous 14 years in FMSD, 11 of those under the leadership of Superintendent Cruz, as governed by the FMSD School Board members George Sanchez (30+ years), Rudy Rodriguez (16+ years), and Steven Sanchez (3 years) has only shown declining test scores and the education of our FMSD children to the lowest levels they have ever been. We MUST revisit Education, and make it goal number #1 in our district!
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
