A Reflection on Last Night's SVUSD Community Forum
Last night I attended the Community Forum hosted by Sonoma Valley Unified School District
at Altimira Middle School.
The format was straightforward. New Superintendent Jason Sutter opened by introducing himself, sharing a bit of his background and history in the valley, and acknowledging the difficulties this district has weathered over the last decade and more. He framed the evening as an opportunity to give voice to community members who haven't felt heard in a long time.
Roughly sixteen community members attended, including parents and other district residents. They were joined by a mixed contingent of district office staff, teachers, and principals who participated alongside us.
After his opening remarks, Superintendent Sutter asked attendees to join one of five small groups. Each group had a facilitator and a scribe to capture participants' thoughts. We were given two questions and asked for candid, unvarnished responses:
What is going well in the district?
What needs to improve in the district?
Each group's answers were written on large sheets of paper for everyone to see, and each group then narrowed its responses down to a top three. Interestingly, several answers naturally clustered under shared themes. Once all five groups finished, the top three answers from each group on both questions were shared aloud.
There was significant overlap. On what needs to improve: better communication from the Board to school staff and from the District to parents appeared on nearly every list. Other recurring themes included a Board of Trustees that still does not listen to or meaningfully engage with school staff, the need for stronger academic support in classrooms, a desire to bring the whole district together, and a wellness center at every school.
On what is going well, participants pointed to community partnerships, the Dual Immersion program, strong educational leaders, the high school career track program, afterschool programs, and broad community support.
It was a reasonable start. There were also some glaring deficits worth naming honestly.
While the format of the evening was understandable, with the two questions posed and small group discussions, it was also yet another way for the district to control the conversation.
There was no opportunity for community members to ask the questions that have actually been on their minds. We answered the district's questions; we were not invited to pose our own. That structural choice turned what could have been a real conversation into a managed
exercise. Allowing space for community questions would have made the event feel far more authentic, and that one difference would have made the evening much more real.
The ratio of district staff to community members was lopsided. Staff outnumbered residents by a wide margin. Attendance was disappointingly low for a district in which so many consequential things are happening. People are talking. They just aren't showing up at the forum.
The most glaring fact: this district is roughly 66% Latino, and Latino parents made up perhaps 8% of attendees. That number sets aside Latino district employees, several of whom have children in the district. I don't want to discount them. I only want to highlight how few Latino parents were present last night as parents. This was the elephant in the room, and I heard the same observation from other participants without prompting.
My read is that many Latino community members may no longer believe their voices matter here. They have spoken out in the past, sometimes loudly, and many have concluded it changes nothing, so why bother. I don't blame any parent for not wanting to walk into a room that feels like someone else's territory and then be expected to speak openly about being excluded from it. That is an enormous ask. The absence in the room is not apathy. It is a rational response to being talked past for years.
If the district is serious about hearing from this community, the next forum should be held in a more intimate, culturally familiar setting. One designed for the people the district most needs to hear from, not one that asks them to come to us. Cultural sensitivity is not a nicety. It is a basic prerequisite for leadership in a district like ours, and event design has to reflect that.
It also has to be said, gently but plainly, that the new superintendent serves at the pleasure of the Board, not the other way around. A goodwill gesture is meaningful only insofar as it survives contact with the people who hold the hiring and firing power. Mr. Sutter is by all accounts a kind man, but he does not speak Spanish and is not deeply versed in the cultural realities of the families this district serves. That gap is not incidental. It shapes what is possible in rooms like last night's.
A note on the trustees in attendance. Two members of the Board were present. One sat down quietly with a group, listened, and participated as a community member, which is exactly the right posture for a trustee at a listening session, and it was appreciated. The other did not join a group at all. She stood behind my group and hovered over the discussion as it unfolded. Whatever the intent, the effect was unmistakable. People pulled their punches.
Trustees attending a forum designed to elicit candid feedback, feedback often about the Board itself, should either participate as equals within a group or not attend at all. Standing over a group of community members and watching them speak is not neutral. It dampens the
very candor the evening was meant to invite.
Despite all of this, I am still encouraging people to show up. If every district family committed to just three events a year, one Trustee office hour, one Board meeting (yes, they can be tedious, but they are essential for understanding what is being done in your name and for your children), and one event like this forum, the exchange of ideas would be healthier, the Board would have a truer pulse on the community it is supposed to serve, and we would begin to climb out of the deep hole we are still in.
Last night was a start. Whether it becomes more than that depends on what the district does next, and on whether the people in power are willing to hear what they actually asked to hear.