Town hall dialogue at Carrillo ropes in overwhelming support from the Eastside community

Photo of the Town hall meeting (Sophia Nagra/The Puma Prensa)

Written By: Lauren Chavez and Sophia Nagra

On Thursday, December 16 at 6:00 pm, the district’s fourth town hall dialogue took place in Maria Carrillo High School’s large gym. Over 500 people were in attendance, heavily exceeding the 100 to 150 seen at past meetings.

Upon arrival, a growing line wrapped around the large gym’s main entrance back to the service road. Prior to entry, community members were hurriedly handed lilac sticky dots, each labeled with the number scenario rotation they were to begin with, symbolizing a vote.

All eyes were on Superintendent Dr. Daisy Morales and Assistant Superintendent Lisa August who led the meeting with introductions of five scenarios that all attending could stick their votes on.

The most popular solution, “Option Six” created and presented by students in leadership, aimed to hold those in power accountable for their overspending, staff cuts, and over-compensation via mass school closures, as well as to showcase that no one was happy with any of the options presented by the school board. Support for this option was abundantly clear, with all of 419 votes.

District administrators shouted information at crowded pockets of people, each in a corner of the room where different situations were posed; each station allowed the public to write out pros and cons on large sheets of paper.

The last half hour of this dialogue was marked with a public Q&A portion, in which members of the audience lined up to ask August any questions the administrators could not answer. If and when these questions arose from the rotations, administrators directed concerned community members to brightly colored sticky notes, where they could record these unanswerable questions.These Post-its, symbolic of worry surrounded by information too ambiguous to put minds at ease, scattered both posters and tables — many unclear on what to do with their uncertainty. 

Outrage and emotion were hallmarks of this section, reinforced by audience hands raised in support each time August asked if anyone else had the same question. Parents raised concerns about students not having a say in decisions about their own schools, a common factor in many comments embedded within queries. It was voiced that the district was too ambiguous with their information, not providing enough certain information that could be put to better use in ranking the schools and selecting a course of action.

After a parent proposed the option of putting the school closures on hold until a better solution came to light, the board was quick to tell the audience that if the consolidations are pushed off, the state of California will become involved, and local input will not be considered. This would also cause heavy fines of $450,000 per year.

After the meeting concluded, sophomore Carlo Cuniberti, junior Ryan Malm, junior Micah Hoese, senior Callie Ritter, and senior Kaylin Wen presented “Option Six” to August, who initially rejected the proposal. 

Overall, the profuse support from Eastside’s community has sent a clear message to the district. As Callie Ritter, senior class president and member of Leadership, put it, “We need to prioritize education. Let’s focus on creating a productive community that can succeed during this time of insane change.”