The Executive Board of the Berkeley PTA Council addressed the School Board and BUSD administration on 1/25. Here is the content of their address: Good evening. We would first like to acknowledge and give thanks to Board Director Ty Alper, who has faithfully attended PTA Council meetings for the last two years. This is the first time a Board member has regularly attended our meetings within our collective memories. We are grateful for his appreciation of the tremendous work that the PTA units of Berkeley do in support of equity, and on behalf of all of our families. We especially want to thank him for acknowledging the PTA as partners with BUSD at our meeting this past Monday. No one has ever said that to us before. Director Alper, that means a lot to us. We thank you. We are here this evening once again to talk about Berkeley High. Despite the fact that Labor Code section 232.5, as well as CA Labor code 923, prohibit employers from placing employees under gag orders, Principal Pasarow, along with other employees who have been questioned by district lawyers, have clearly been instructed not to discuss the matter with anyone. Many members of the general public are under the mistaken impression that due process is being served, when all evidence is to the contrary. We all have many ties to different members of the BUSD community. We hear that administrators are now terrified to hold their employees accountable. We hear from classified and certificated staff who miss Sam Pasarow and want him to come back, but are afraid to even reveal their names. These days, everyone prefaces their remarks with “speak more softly” and “you can’t tell anyone I told you this.” We hear from countless PTA volunteers who are now utterly disillusioned and disheartened with the realization that in our school district, protecting certain district employees and the status quo come first, students come last, and victims of sexual assault are at the very end of the line. There have been five sexual assaults in BHS stairwells in the last year and a half. We’ve volunteered on Unity Days at BHS; our work consisted mainly of walking the stairs and stairwells, and checking the bathrooms. Not a hard job, but necessary. We note that there wasn’t much of a time lag between when Mr. Pasarow gave direction to personnel to patrol stairwells, to when he was publicly accused of being a “racist bully” and from then to when the district yanked him from BHS. Some of the BHS security staff have public Facebook pages. One of them posted 58 times while on the job a couple of weeks ago. Someone posted 51 times today between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. How is that even possible? That person is on the job, tasked with keeping our children safe, but Mr. Pasarow isn’t allowed to do his job. We’re having a little trouble here assuming positive intent from the District. For years now, the District has told us how hard they are working on the achievement gap, and we believed it. With all that hard work, if they couldn’t do it, it seemed it just couldn’t be done. But now, at last, we see the truth, and we are ready to speak truth to power. That closing the achievement gap requires accountability, and sadly, BUSD hasn’t got the stomach for it. That BUSD administration is so ingrown and beholden to each other that its first instinct is to protect itself, rather than do right by our students. That courageous work is punished, while mediocrity is rewarded. That employees who sexually assault students get to keep their jobs. That employees who sexually harass their subordinates get promoted, while their victims get driven out. That there is a special unwritten BUSD code that says some employees must never, ever be held accountable, even if they don’t come to work, even if they are openly defiant of basic direction, even if they sexually assault a student. That some students won’t be held accountable because their parents lawyer up, and some won’t be held accountable because of who they’re related to, and that victims always, always, always come last. That a principal holding employees accountable leads to being accused of racism and bullying, which leads, apparently, to getting fired. That we are more afraid of being called racists than we are of being racists. That the fear of being accused of racism outweighs anything else, including student safety and student achievement. Sam Pasarow has been “disappeared,” and based on the silence, we are guessing you are trying to figure out where to stash the body so that no one will ever learn the truth. It certainly seems that he is being punished for daring to make a difference around here. We’ve been attending lots of protest marches and rallies these days, and we’re learning all kinds of wonderful proverbs and quotes. Here’s the one we’ll leave you with today: Quisieron enterrarnos, pero se les olvido que somos semillas.They tried to bury us not realizing we were seeds.