As the Department of Education is one step away from approving the Ross Valley Charter petition, and as they plan their $60 per person fundraiser/celebration, let us all pause and reflect upon the cost thus far to our community.

At the hearing on December 2, many MAP parents stood up and spoke about the superiority of MAP to K5, and indeed, TO EVERY OTHER TEACHER AND SCHOOL IN THE DISTRICT.

This comes as no surprise, as one MAP teacher has notoriously stood up at Board meetings for years and asserted how much she and her MAP colleagues "deserve," because they "work harder than any other teacher in the district." This is in a public meeting, people.

After 19 years of documented discrimination (against many FSACC families), they are now touting their "flourishing partnership," while several FSACC parents spoke negatively about the Manor K5 teachers and program at the State Hearing.

In retrospect, this appears to have been part of a long-term strategy which MAP/RVC leaders have been executing for years:

Andrea Sumits (Yahoo! in 2011)—"In my humble opinion, [a charter school] would be a far smarter longterm investment of our Measure A money to invest in an RVSD-owned asset."

Jason Morrison in 2014—"My perspective is that as much of our collective bandwidth as possible should be spend trying to understand the viability of MAP becoming a charter school."

Conn Hickey (petition's appendix in 2015)—"He was a district Trustee for almost seven years between 2003 and 2011, during which time he became the board expert on school finance, renewed a parcel tax, and helped shape and pass the Measure A bond measure in 2010. He is currently a member the District’s Measure A Citizen Oversight Committee."*

Your disregard for others in this community has not gone unnoticed, and it will not be easily forgotten, RVC. Your drive to"win" has come with considerable losses to all of us and all of our children.

We will be watching you, RVC.

*Sounds like we have a fox guarding the henhouse!