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On Thursday, October 22, Board President David Bell and Trustee Jason Lehman held office hours at El Verano Elementary. About eight people came. Most were El Verano teachers. A parent and I were there too. The hour was not recorded, so what I write here about that afternoon comes from my notes, taken the same day.
What matters is not only what they said. It is how what they said lines up against what they’ve done. Everything on the record side below comes from Board meeting videos, posted on SonomaTV’s YouTube channel, and Board minutes, posted on the District’s Board meeting site. You can check every line of it.
The Pride flag
At office hours, Bell said it is normal to celebrate Pride Month and that the flag could fly the last 30 days of June. He said, “It should be all flags.”
Here is the record. On June 11, Bell told the Board: “let’s fly no flags and let’s just take it down.” On October 8, he said only two options should be considered, Option Four or Option One: “No symbolic flags at all.” Then he moved Option One. It passed 3 to 2. Under the policy Bell moved, the Pride flag does not fly in June either.
At office hours, Lehman said he had wanted to fly the Pride flag for a month. A woman in the room answered him: “But that’s not what you voted for.” She was right.
On June 11, Lehman asked the Board, “At a minimum, the flag should fly during Pride month?” and answered himself: “For me, I would say yes, at a minimum.” On September 10, he said the District’s own student survey “did say there was a lot of support for the flag being up.” On October 8, he said Option Two had been his first choice, and then: “I am going to end up supporting Option one.” He did. He also asked that the Board consider designating a month in the future. A future vote is not a flag.
At office hours, Lehman said he wants to survey students again, from a “blank slate.” The students have already answered. On May 18, the District surveyed Sonoma Valley High School students, and 571 of them took part, according to the Superintendent’s report to the Board on June 11. On September 10, Lehman himself called that turnout strong: “We had about 600 students respond to a survey, which is 60% response rate, I think should be considered quite high.”
Bell also said there are several hundred students with autism in the District, and that their parents might want a flag too. On June 11, Bell asked the District’s special education director how many autistic students there are. The answer he got was “approximately 600 students with IEPs,” which counts every disability, not autism alone. I asked the District’s special education director for the real number. He called back and left me a phone message on October 26: as of this year’s state census day, October 7, the District has 565 students with IEPs, and 111 of them have autism listed as a primary or secondary disability. That is about one hundred students, not several hundred.
Lehman said he looked at San Francisco, Napa, Marin and Sonoma before he decided. Other East Bay districts made the opposite choice. Hayward voted to fly the Progress Pride flag at every school, indefinitely. Dublin voted to fly it at its high schools through the school year. And in Sunol, after a board banned it, voters recalled the trustees who did it.
In January, Bell had the flag taken down on his own. In September he told the Board how it happened: “Yeah, let’s take it down and we’ll see what happens.” On January 27, he said he should have put the question on the agenda for the Board instead. David Bell reopened this question. Our Board chose no flags. That choice belongs to the three trustees who voted for it, and two of them sat at El Verano describing a policy they did not vote for.
Cuts
A parent said reading intervention had been cut and asked what that has done to reading scores. Later, when someone asked about cuts, Lehman said, “We don’t make cuts.”
On May 4, Lehman made the motion to approve Resolution 26-33, the layoff of classified employees. It passed. It eliminated three health assistant positions, two school library technician positions, a bilingual community liaison, four bilingual instructional assistants and the Director of Student Wellness and Inclusion.
He knew the cuts were coming. On September 23, 2025, Lehman told the Board, “We will probably need to cut further after school consolidation.” That same night he said the Board had chosen not to cut services that directly impact students. Health assistants and librarians serve students directly.
MacArthur Park
A teacher whose son has an IEP said the experts told the Board no on the MacArthur Park charter, and the Board approved it anyway. Lehman’s answer, as I noted it, was that the Board has been in governance training, and the point is that trustees should not be making those kinds of decisions.
On January 8, Lehman was the trustee who made the motion: “I will put a motion on the table for 14.4, the approval of, MacArthur Park Charter School, petition.” That same night, the District staff member who evaluated the petition told the Board: “as it stands right now, I can’t, as an educator, with my ethics and my morals and what I believe is right for kids, say that this would be a good decision for us.” Despite that evaluation, 4 of the 5 Board members voted for it anyway.
Positive Images
At office hours, Bell denied that the District had dropped Positive Images, the Sonoma County organization that trained District staff on supporting LGBTQ students. The District’s own plan says otherwise. Its draft LCAP from April 22, 2026 says, “All staff were trained by Positive Images in the 24-25 school year.” Three pages later it says, “We are no longer partnering with Positive Images.” Whether or not the Board took a vote, the District ended that partnership, and it wrote so in its own plan.
What a charter costs
At office hours, Bell said, “Charters are our students.” On January 8, before the vote, he went further: “I don’t agree that a charter school is taking away money from public education. I think that’s a fallacy.”
Five weeks later, on February 12, District staff presented the layoff list. They said the reductions were “necessary due to lack of funds, the elementary school consolidation and recent charter school approval,” including “seven teachers due to the approval of the charter school.”
Seven teachers. That is what the fallacy cost.
Student mental health
A staff member who is also a parent asked how the Board will help students carry what they are carrying right now: fear about immigration, the flag fight, and more. Lehman said to email the Superintendent. Bell said to concentrate on school things. Asked about students using the wellness center during class time, Bell claimed some students use it as an excuse to get out of class.
On September 10, this same Board adopted Resolution 27-02, declaring September Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. It cites the District’s own student survey: 11 percent of 6th to 8th graders and 7 percent of high school students said they had seriously considered suicide in the past year. Five weeks ago the Board itself put student mental health inside “school things.” It cannot take it back out now.
Why they keep sending you to the Superintendent
At a September 29 study session, the Board’s governance trainer told trustees, “you are not the board at your office hours,” and that when someone brings a complaint, “First, you say, go to the superintendent.” That explains the answers at El Verano. It does not change who votes. The Superintendent does not move resolutions. Trustees do.
Go to the next one
The next office hours are Tuesday, November 17, at Sassarini, Room 3.3. Check the District website for the time. Bring your questions. But know this: office hours are not recorded and no minutes are taken, so nothing said there is on the record. If you want an answer on the record, send your question by email afterward and ask for a written reply. That is the only way to get it on the record.
Leigh Cavalier, Sonoma Schools Alliance
Sources: Board meeting video on SonomaTV, January 8, January 27, June 11, September 10 and October 8, 2026, and September 23, 2025; District minutes, January 8 and May 4, 2026; Superintendent’s student survey report, June 11, 2026; Board Resolution 27-02; District draft LCAP, April 22, 2026, pages 24 and 27; Hayward, Dublin and Sunol board actions, 2023 to 2025, as reported by Pleasanton Weekly, NBC Bay Area and The Independent; study session video, September 29, 2026; my notes from office hours, October 22, 2026.
Unidos por Nuestras Escuelas, United for Our Schools
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El jueves 22 de octubre, el presidente de la Mesa Directiva, David Bell, y el miembro de la Mesa Jason Lehman tuvieron horas de oficina en la Escuela Primaria El Verano. Llegaron unas ocho personas. La mayoría eran maestros de El Verano. También estuvimos una madre de familia y yo. La hora no fue grabada, así que lo que escribo aquí sobre esa tarde viene de mis notas, tomadas el mismo día.
Lo importante no es solo lo que dijeron. Es cómo lo que dijeron se compara con lo que han hecho. Todo lo que aparece abajo como parte del registro viene de los videos de las reuniones de la Mesa Directiva, publicados en el canal de YouTube de SonomaTV, y de las actas de la Mesa, publicadas en el sitio de reuniones de la Mesa del Distrito. Cada línea se puede verificar.