By Tony Dolz
Let parents parent. Let school board members serve, not bully.
Faced with school policies that they do not like, parents choose the best school for their children.  Parents have already pulled 22% of students out of district public schools and put them in private schools, home-schooled or fled the district. Do we need more proof that parents prefer CHOICE over school board bullying?
The previous school board gave parents a choice of books for English literature. Choice is good.
The current school board members, since the November 2018 election, Betsy Connolly, Bill Gorback, Jenny Fitzgerald and Cindy Goldberg, the grinches of CVUSD, want to restrict parental rights and choice.  Lack of choice is bad.
One of the books that Connolly, Gorback, Fitzgerald and Goldberg want to force our children to read, describes in graphic horror a man violently raping his own daughter. Do we want our children to be forced to read this and similar acts of violence against women and girls? Could such violent imagery trigger a vulnerable child and tragically lead to self-harm?   The current policy does not infringe on Connolly, Gorback, Fitzgerald and Goldberg’s right to choose books for their children. The district teachers also presently enjoy this benefit for their children enrolled in our schools. That is the beauty of the present policy allowing choice. The parents in the district, the rest of us, would like the same for ourselves, and that is fair, no?
The overwhelming number of students in the district have not reached 18 years of age, and are therefore they are the unarguable responsibility of their parents or guardians. The newly elected board members hardly seem to have noticed that parents have parental rights over their minor children.
Are not movies and certain establishments governed by statutory age limits with such designations as R, MA, and PG13, which require parental approval or supervision? Why strip school district parents of similar protection, or at a minimum, that courtesy?
Thanks to the previous school board members, Mike Dunn, John Andersen and Sandee Everett, we currently have a choice of books under school board policy, but Connolly, Gorback, Fitzgerald and Goldberg want to bully us out of the right to choose. Lack of choice is bad.
The issue is not books. The issue is choice. It is about the right to parent. Write to the school board in support of choice. Next school board meeting is on Tuesday, April 23.
PSÂ The figure of 22% leaving CVUSD public schools is contained in the Thousand Oaks Citizens Survey reported by former School Superintendent Ann Bonitiatibus
Tony Dolz lives with his family in Thousand Oaks.  Founder of the Concerned Parents of California; MBA – International Business; Local Business Owner; Married, Father of Two Children
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