The Sonoma Valley Unified School Board voted 3 to 2 on October 8 to take down the Pride flag at Sonoma Valley High School. Here is who asked them not to, and what they said.
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Oct 9, 2026 · @Leigh Cavalier
On Wednesday night the Sonoma Valley Unified School Board voted 3 to 2 to allow only the United States flag, the California flag, and school site flags at district schools. No symbolic flags of any kind.
Trustees David Bell, Catarina Landry and Jason Lehman voted yes. Trustees Ann Ching and Gerardo Guzman voted no.
Superintendent Jason Sutter asked for one clarification before the meeting moved on. Board President Bell confirmed the flag does not go back up Monday.
The Pride flag had flown at Sonoma Valley High School since 2019. Students asked for it. The student body voted for it. The principal and the site put it up.
Everyone closest to the school asked them not to
This is the part worth sitting with.
The students asked them not to. Speaker after speaker, for the fifth meeting in a row.
The student representative on the Board voted no. Austin Cheeseman cast the student preferential vote against the policy that passed. He had recommended the option that kept the decision with students.
The teachers' union asked them not to. VMTA told the Board from the podium: "The board's role is to establish broad policy, provide direction, and ensure our schools operate within the law. It is not to manage the day-to-day decisions of individual school sites."
The classified employees' union asked them not to. CSEA President John Gray said the Board "has spent far too much time on issues surrounding the Pride flag," and that given the district's three stated priorities of literacy, attendance and building trust, "the trustees should follow the recommendations of the superintendent, the majority of the community and the majority of students at the high school."
The high school principal came to the podium. Molly Kiss told the Board she was there because her name and role had been raised at previous meetings when she was not present to speak for herself. She said: "In my role as principal, it is my responsibility to ensure that every student feels a sense of belonging on our campus, that every student feels heard, cared for, seen and safe." She added that regardless of how the Board voted, "we will be here."
The Superintendent's own recommendation was not adopted.
Twenty-five people took speaker cards. The Board cut public comment from three minutes to ninety seconds to get through them all.
What the students said
These are their words, from the podium, Wednesday night.
"School is supposed to be a place where students feel safe, and only when we feel safe we can learn. That's not the case anymore when the Pride flag is removed."
"At what point do we stop asking marginalized people and students to become stronger in the face of prejudice and start asking ourselves why we keep allowing that prejudice to exist?"
"Children should not have to learn how to live with less compassion. Just because the adults around them have decided that compassion is unrealistic."
— Livy, Sonoma Valley High School student
"Nine months ago, I stood here advocating for the students of a school I didn't yet attend. I believed that the Pride flag ordeal would have been solved by the time I got to high school, but I've been proven terribly wrong."
"LGBTQ people exist year-round, so why should we only be represented by a flag for only one or two months of the year?"
— Micah Johan, SVHS freshman and GSA member
"An overwhelmingly vast majority of the student voice on this issue has advocated for keeping the flag. If you choose not to keep this in mind, I do not think that will make us feel like you are taking steps towards your goal."
— Phoebe Richards, SVHS student, quoting the district's own Local Control and Accountability Plan
Adults spoke too. A local psychotherapist who has worked with young people here for years told the Board that "removing the flag is a clear message to teens that gay young people are no longer to feel safe." A parent of three district students quoted a line about equality: "Someone else receiving dignity does not diminish yours."
Trustee Guzman, before the final vote, said this:
"One of the fundamental high school experiences is shaping one's identity and finding communities of belonging. This flag is a tool to help students feel welcome and that they can pursue an education without fear of ridicule or ostracization."
"We as a board unanimously crafted three priorities for the district this year. Building trust is one of those. And these options undermine that trust completely."
How it happened
In September the Board directed the Superintendent to bring back three options. Three came back. A fourth one appeared in the packet anyway.
Three motions were made, in this order.
First, Option 3. Flags only, plus a process for students at the high school to apply to fly symbolic flags. Trustee Ching moved it. Trustee Guzman seconded. The student representative voted aye. It failed, 2 to 3.
Second, Option 4. President Bell's own proposal, a rotating flagpole open to any group by application. No trustee seconded it. It died without a vote.
Third, Option 1. United States, California and school flags only. Bell moved it, Landry seconded. The student representative voted nay. It passed, 3 to 2.
Option 4 was never one of the three the Board asked for. President Bell added it himself, using Board Bylaw 9322, which allows any single trustee to put an item on an agenda. Superintendent Sutter confirmed this from the dais.
Options 1 and 3 were reviewed by the Board Policy committee. Option 4 was not. All three went to legal counsel.
Two trustees objected to how it got there. Trustee Guzman: "We have no business writing our own ARs as individuals. We certainly are here to provide input on the policy direction, to tell the superintendent the what, the why, but we're not here to supersede the superintendent's authority and his staff to develop the ARs."
Trustee Ching said the Board had already discussed the problem with that bylaw in its own governance workshop, and that there had seemed to be consensus it was not the best way to proceed.
Two members of the public asked that Option 4 be sent to the policy committee before being deliberated. Because nobody seconded it, none of that was ever resolved.
One more thing worth knowing. Trustee Lehman had favored a compromise, flying the flag in May and June. He changed his position after doing research on other districts. Here is how he described that research from the dais: "There 60 plus districts between Marin Napa and Sonoma, I could only find one district that had option three current today... by Chas GPT's count, I didn't manually count them."
That is a quote. He told the room he used ChatGPT and did not verify the count himself. We are checking it.
What happens now
A board policy is not permanent. It can be amended at any time by a majority vote, like any other policy.
One new trustee is seated in December. That is the next time the math on this Board can change.
And here is the thing to watch, because it will not be labeled as a flag item.
Bylaw 9322 is the rule President Bell used to put his own option on Wednesday's agenda. It is the clause that lets a single trustee bring something forward without needing permission from the rest of the Board first.
That same clause is the only independent way a new trustee could bring this back in January.
The Superintendent has proposed either removing that clause or stretching its notice period from eleven days to thirty. If that change passes before December, the incoming trustee loses the one tool they would have had, and a decision that could be revisited in three months becomes one that waits for years.
Watch the agendas. It will appear as a bylaw revision, in a batch, with a name that sounds like housekeeping.
Trustee Lehman also asked that the Board consider designating a month at the high school, and asked staff to find out how San Francisco Unified handles it. That goes to the policy committee, which is Trustees Ching and Lehman. It is less than what students asked for. It is also a door left open by the third vote.
The next regular Board meeting is in November. Public comment is open to anyone.
A note on accuracy: the recording captures overlapping voices on the final vote rather than a roll call. The vote count and the three yes votes are drawn from who moved, who seconded and who spoke on the record. We will confirm against the official minutes when they are posted and correct this if needed.
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La Mesa Directiva del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Sonoma Valley votó 3 a 2 el 8 de octubre para retirar la bandera del Orgullo de la Preparatoria Sonoma Valley. Esto es quiénes les pidieron que no lo hicieran, y lo que dijeron.
El miércoles por la noche la Mesa Directiva votó 3 a 2 para permitir únicamente la bandera de los Estados Unidos, la bandera de California y las banderas de cada escuela. Ninguna bandera simbólica de ningún tipo.
Los fideicomisarios David Bell, Catarina Landry y Jason Lehman votaron a favor. Los fideicomisarios Ann Ching y Gerardo Guzmán votaron en contra.
El Superintendente Jason Sutter pidió una aclaración antes de que la reunión continuara. El Presidente de la Mesa, Bell, confirmó que la bandera no volverá a ondear el lunes.
La bandera del Orgullo ondeaba en la Preparatoria Sonoma Valley desde 2019. Los estudiantes la pidieron. El cuerpo estudiantil votó por ella. La directora y la escuela la colocaron.
Todos los más cercanos a la escuela les pidieron que no lo hicieran
Los estudiantes se lo pidieron. Uno tras otro, por quinta reunión consecutiva.
El representante estudiantil de la Mesa votó en contra. Austin Cheeseman emitió el voto preferencial estudiantil en contra de la política que se aprobó.
El sindicato de maestros se lo pidió. VMTA le dijo a la Mesa: "El papel de la Mesa es establecer políticas generales, dar dirección y asegurar que nuestras escuelas operen dentro de la ley. No es administrar las decisiones diarias de cada plantel."
El sindicato de empleados clasificados se lo pidió. El presidente de CSEA, John Gray, dijo que la Mesa "ha dedicado demasiado tiempo a asuntos relacionados con la bandera del Orgullo", y que dadas las tres prioridades declaradas del distrito, alfabetización, asistencia y construir confianza, "los fideicomisarios deberían seguir las recomendaciones del superintendente, de la mayoría de la comunidad y de la mayoría de los estudiantes de la preparatoria."
La directora de la preparatoria se presentó ante el micrófono. Molly Kiss dijo que estaba ahí porque su nombre y su cargo habían sido mencionados en reuniones anteriores cuando ella no estuvo presente para hablar por sí misma. Dijo: "En mi papel como directora, es mi responsabilidad asegurar que cada estudiante sienta que pertenece en nuestro plantel, que cada estudiante se sienta escuchado, atendido, visto y seguro." Agregó que sin importar cómo votara la Mesa, "estaremos aquí."
La recomendación del propio Superintendente no fue adoptada.
Veinticinco personas tomaron turno para hablar. La Mesa redujo el comentario público de tres minutos a noventa segundos para alcanzar a escuchar a todos.
Lo que dijeron los estudiantes
"Se supone que la escuela es un lugar donde los estudiantes se sienten seguros, y solo cuando nos sentimos seguros podemos aprender. Ese ya no es el caso cuando se retira la bandera del Orgullo."
"¿En qué momento dejamos de pedirle a las personas marginadas y a los estudiantes que se vuelvan más fuertes frente al prejuicio, y empezamos a preguntarnos por qué seguimos permitiendo que ese prejuicio exista?"
— Livy, estudiante de la Preparatoria Sonoma Valley
"Hace nueve meses, estuve aquí abogando por los estudiantes de una escuela a la que todavía no asistía. Creía que el asunto de la bandera del Orgullo estaría resuelto para cuando yo llegara a la preparatoria, pero me equivoqué terriblemente."
"Las personas LGBTQ existimos todo el año, entonces ¿por qué deberíamos estar representados por una bandera solo uno o dos meses del año?"
— Micah Johan, estudiante de primer año y miembro de GSA
El fideicomisario Guzmán, antes del voto final, dijo:
"Una de las experiencias fundamentales de la preparatoria es formar la propia identidad y encontrar comunidades de pertenencia. Esta bandera es una herramienta para ayudar a los estudiantes a sentirse bienvenidos y a poder estudiar sin miedo al ridículo o al rechazo."
"Como Mesa elaboramos por unanimidad tres prioridades para el distrito este año. Construir confianza es una de ellas. Y estas opciones socavan esa confianza por completo."