April ‘26 Board Meeting Field Notes
What Happened at the April 9 SVUSD Board Meeting & And Why It Matters
By Leigh Cavalier, Sonoma Schools Alliance | April 12, 2026
Last Wednesday, April 9, the Sonoma Valley Unified School District held its regular board meeting. Roughly 28 community members attended. All four present trustees, President David Bell, Ann Ching, Jason Lehman, and Gerardo Guzman, were there. Trustee Catarina Landry was absent. Superintendent Jason Sutter and all district staff were present.
Here is what happened, and what you need to know.
The Opening: Bell Addresses His Office Hours Walkout
Board President David Bell opened the meeting by addressing an incident that occurred at his April 7 office hours. He stated that a citizen attended who he believed was not being respectful toward him, and that as a result, he chose to leave without answering that person's questions.
The community deserves to know this happened. A sitting board president, at a scheduled public meeting, left without engaging with the only constituent who showed up.
For the record, that citizen was me and as there are always 2 sides to every story, here is my account of what happened:
I was the only member of the public who attended President Bell's office hours that morning. I suggested we wait five minutes in case others showed up before I began my questions. Five minutes later………his phone rang. He answered it and left me sitting alone in that conference room for 20 minutes.
When I went to find him, I found him outside, not having a conversation but scrolling through his phone. I told him I had only three questions. He said he had no interest in answering them because I don’t respect him. I told him he was confusing lack of respect with asking hard questions he doesn’t want to answer.
He then described his role as “volunteer work”. I pointed out that he sought this position and that trustees receive district healthcare coverage as compensation.
I also stated that as a taxpayer in this district I have every right to ask questions of elected trustees. So he left without answering a single one.
At the board meeting, he also implied I followed him back into the office. I did, because campus protocol requires visitors to sign out on the iPad located in that office. That is not following someone. That is following the rules.
He went on to say on the public record that I called him a "boy." That is not accurate. I called him a wuss. Those are not the same word, and they do not carry the same meaning. The record should reflect what was actually said.
I went home that evening and wrote to Superintendent Jason Sutter documenting exactly what happened. The community now has the two versions of this story. They can decide for themselves which one holds up.
Staff Are Scared: Pink Slips and What They Mean
The VMTA co-presidents delivered a sobering report at the opening of the meeting: staff anxiety and uncertainty are very high during the current pink slip season.
The CSEA president, representing classified employees, expressed the high anxiety felt among the pink slipped staff, the people who keep every building in this district running. He also raised an issue that rarely gets attention: when classified staff leave, decades of institutional knowledge leave with them. It has never been written down, never been formalized. His recommendation: the district needs to start memorializing that expertise before it walks out the door permanently.
Librarians: The Math Doesn't Add Up
The district currently has 5 librarians serving 7 campuses. Next year, when one elementary school campus becomes MacArthur Park Charter, the district will be reduced to 6 campuses. But 2 of those 5 librarians have been pink-slipped, leaving only 3 librarians to cover all 6 sites, the high school, Creekside Alternative High School, Altimira Middle School, and the three remaining elementary schools.
This is a district that says literacy is its top priority. Cutting librarians is not a path to literacy.
Health Staff: A Matter of Life and Death
During the meeting, a parent called in via Zoom to speak about the pink-slipping of higher-skilled health staff. Her child has a serious medical condition: if not reached within five minutes of an episode, the situation becomes life-threatening. With qualified medical personnel being cut, she said she is now actively reconsidering whether her child can safely remain in SVUSD.
That is not a budget abstraction. That is a child's life.
Cell Phones: A Policy That's Actually Working
On a more encouraging note, SVUSD proactively enacted a bell-to-bell cell phone ban before the state mandate took effect, a rare instance of the district getting ahead of state policy rather than waiting to be told.
The student representative reported something that might surprise skeptics: since the policy went into effect, she has observed noticeably more peer-to-peer interaction among students. Kids are actually talking to each other. And the vast majority of students are following the new rule.
VMTA co-president Laura Holman, who noted she is known informally as the "cell phone police," supports the policy fully. She and others also discussed extending the policy to cover smartwatches, which a teacher pointed out are currently a loophole: if phones are banned but smartwatches aren't, students will simply use those instead. The board also discussed offering parent education on understanding the benefits reducing screen time at home and school.
Climatec Energy Infrastructure: A Plan, a Bond, and a Lone No Vote
Representatives from Climatec, an energy infrastructure consulting firm, appeared before the board for approximately the third or fourth time to present their plan for repairing and upgrading the district's energy systems.
Their findings:
- HVAC units across district campuses have exceeded their expected lifespan by 10 or more years
- Many solar panels have been non-functional for several years, generating no energy for the district
- Classrooms are reported to be overly cold in winter and overly hot in summer, with poor lighting, a problem raised directly by VMTA co-president Laura Holman
- A full overhaul would cost approximately $10 million, approximately $6 million would be available at a very low interest rate through and a voter-approved bond would provide a substantial money as well.
- Climatec's fee is 5%; all analysis and presentations to date have been provided at no charge
- Delaying costs money: every year without action, prices rise
- Critically: the voter-approved bond carries a financial penalty if the funds are not spent
The board voted to move forward with Climatec's plan.
Priority order: SVHS first (oldest, most complex system), Sassarini second.
A parent caller with industry experience disputed the projected savings, claiming the energy improvements would not produce the cost reductions Climatec described. Climatec's representatives maintained the opposite position, that reduced energy consumption will produce real savings for the district.
Vote: Ann Ching voted NO. All other trustees voted YES. Given the bond penalty for inaction, Ching's opposition deserves scrutiny.
MacArthur Park Charter: Still No Answers
Representatives from the MacArthur Park Charter School, approved by a 4-1 board vote in January 2026 with Trustee Guzman the only dissent, gave a status update. Here is where things stand after approval:
- No principal has been hired
- No teachers have been hired (they are seeking 9 credentialed teachers)
- 30% of applicants are not Prestwood students, notable given that the charter's rationale was closely connected to Prestwood's closure
- Applied for special education services through the El Dorado Group. It is worth noting that the El Dorado County Charter SELPA is a self-policing organization, governed by the same charter school operators it is responsible for overseeing.
- Claims to be conducting outreach to Latino families, but meetings are scheduled during commute hours, and a community event at Mary's Pizza was announced just four to five hours before it occurred
Most importantly: MacArthur Park provided no curriculum details and no financial information at this meeting. The only board member to press for answers was Trustee Guzman, who asked the MacArthur Park advisory board members directly for detailed curriculum information, the same question he raised on the night of the charter vote in January that went unanswered.
Three months later, their entire answer was that they are using "Project Lead the Way." They did not explain what that means, how it would be implemented, or what parents and students could expect. No other trustee asked a single question.
A school with no principal, no teachers, no disclosed curriculum, and no financial transparency is scheduled to open and draw $2.3 million per year from this district's budget.
The Other Charter: Woodland Star Renewed
Woodland Star Charter came before the board to seek renewal of their charter, and the board approved it. Current enrollment stands at 250 students against a charter cap of 260. The board noted that fewer Latino students are enrolling, a data point worth monitoring. One representative commented that the school needs "the right students in the right grade." That phrase was not elaborated upon; charters are prohibited from selective enrollment, and the comment warrants follow-up.
Good News Worth Noting
Not everything from April 9 was cause for alarm. A few genuinely positive developments:
Superintendent Sutter is showing up. Within his first month on the job, Jason Sutter has visited two-thirds of all classrooms in the district, with plans to visit every single one by the end over the next 30 days. He attended Sonoma Splash at the SVHS pool, where third graders are learning to swim, a district goal with real lifesaving implications.
Music is coming back. Prop 28 is funding music education in the district, and the ED Foundation is establishing an instrument lending library, repairing existing instruments and purchasing new ones to support the reintroduction of music programming. A goal is to in the future, bring back a high school band. to SVHS.
The student voice is strong. The student representative described a successful SVHS Film Festival at Sebastiani Theatre, Debate students are preparing for “Mock Trails” they will be attending and a well-received "Be Kind" week at the high school.
Community Forum, Tuesday, April 14.
The district is hosting a Community Input Session and it is worth showing up. Superintendent Sutter will open with brief remarks, and from there the time belongs to the community. Attendees can share input directly, participate in small group discussions, and ask questions that don't always get airtime at formal board meetings. If you have ever wanted to weigh in but didn't know how, this is a good opportunity. It runs from 5:30 to 7:00 PM at Altimira Middle School's MPR.
One More Voice: French Matters
A mother and her high school son spoke during public comment against the proposed elimination of French from the SVHS curriculum. Their argument was straightforward: language connects students to the world. Not everyone takes Spanish. For students whose path to a second language runs through French, and whose college applications will reflect that, cutting the program closes a door that not everyone can open another way.
The Bottom Line
This board is making decisions, about staffing, about charters, about infrastructure, that will shape this community's schools for years. Some of those decisions are happening with very little public scrutiny and even less transparency from the people making them.
Sonoma Schools Alliance will be at the next meeting, and the one after that. We document what happens so you can decide for yourself what it means for your community's schools.
Have questions or information to share? Contact us at contact@sonomaschoolsalliance.org or visit [sonomaschoolsalliance.org](https://sonomaschoolsalliance.org).