Below is an email sent by a community member to former Principal Laettner after her departure was announced. This is important because it shows the depth of anger within the community. Anger that was blamed on Coach Lopez and Coach Birkle. The more the community showed up for this program, the more retaliation they endured. 

Please continue to share this petition and email the FUSD board and Governor Newsom's office.

The email - 

The purpose of this email is to let you know how many students , parents, community members, and faculty, and most certainly me, are genuinely relieved your devastating tenure at Fresno High School is over. Through your failed leadership and self-serving actions you have managed to destroy what  took decades of dedicated leaders, faculty, staff, parents, and loyal community members to build for the students of our community. I know, I was there for much of it, development of the FHS Alumni Association, Fresno High Historic Neighborhood Holiday Home Tour, IB Magnet, rebuilding of athletic programs through parent fundraising, facilities upgrades, parent involvement in academic support for athletes of multiple sports. As you transition to your new position, ironically working with community members and leaders for their patronage of FUSD students, I want you to understand that my knowledge of your deceitfulness and destructive actions over the past two plus years is extensive. Through the Public Records Act requests process and the extensive number of documents I have collected since 2021, your disregard for the welfare of students, parents, staff, and community members, neglect of FHS facilities and destructive actions towards students are chronicled, documented in text and email both intradistrict, and email communications to community members, FUSD financial and procedural documents, and the external investigation into your actions. A wealth of documentation lays bare your deceptions, your neglect of your responsibility to maintain your site facilities, direct violations of FUSD Board Policies, your support of your own administrators to deliberately carry out deceptive actions that destroyed programs for your own students and in turn violated state and federal statutes for non-discrimination and equity and access that continue to this day. Your direct actions to successfully advocate with other district departments, and District-level administration for one community organization over another in violation of FUSD Board Policy, all revealed legally to me and others in district documents.

This all began when I attempted to contact you as a community member to try to work cooperatively together to find compromise, for the benefit of your student athletes, for shared use of the pool for two community swim clubs, Echo Aquatics and FAMM aka The Manatees.I spoke directly to Natalie Clark, President of FAMM as a stakeholder and she said she would meet to discuss options but said she thought she had "already settled this with the Principal." By "this" she meant her club's monopoly on offering adult swimming. Does $5000.00 really buy that much influence? Despite repeated attempts to contact you directly, you refused to engage in a conversation with me and as the investigator said, "she played dumb to avoid talking to you." You also expressed that as just a community member you didn't see how this particular problem was my business. Not a policy abiding, problem solving skill, or leadership quality one would expect of a Principal of a large urban high school. FUSD email documents show that you knew exactly what I was asking. You were informed directly via email by Civic Center staff of my questions, you were in contact with Board Liaison Michele Rodriguez who directly shared with you the text message conversations I had with her regarding my concerns, then you sent a lengthy email to your district-level Admin. and multiple other departments making them aware of my inquiries. This information is documented through PRA requests documents, and sustained in the investigation through additional PRA requests documents as well.

When Assistant Superintendent Brian Wall became involved, as he told me, he instructed you to reinstate Echo aquatics because you told him you never said there could only be one club providing adult swim. He said your response to the allegation was, "I never said that!" A phrase you repeated to me in a later call. His words to me, he advised you, "So it's an easy fix, give her club back use of the pool." In addition, he said you would be calling me to tell me the good news. When you called me , I was trying to be gracious and say maybe it was a misunderstanding when we both knew it wasn't. Not only were you condescending and rude on the call, trying to read me the board policy when you knew directly from Civic Center I was well versed in Board Policy 1330 and in their words to you, she seemed to know about board policy. Then you insisted I not identify Echo and FAMM by name in the conversation when they were the whole reason for our exchange. Next, you emailed multiple district-level administrators, and other department leadership regarding the completed call, and in it you accused me of rudeness and that because of it you had to hang-up on me. 

These are just two examples of your unconscionable actions in this one area of concern. What you orchestrated in the ultimate destruction of a valuable and important Aquatics program at FHS was brutal in its impact on student athletes and families.  I watched it play out in real time. I watched your admin. caught in lie after lie, I watched in lock step while Assistant Superintendent Bryan Wells tried to run interference to avoid serious trouble, he tried to intercede to correct actions that were district policy violations. Ultimately when it was clear there was no way to defend indefensible actions, the strategy became ignore, deflect, delay and hide behind legal counsel.  

I was an employee in Fresno Unified for thirty years and in a district office position for fifteen of them, I never saw anything like this. I've  been a student advocate in the FHS community beginning with feeder elementary schools for forty plus years. I will continue to advocate for the rights of the students of FHS until they get justice. What the district is teaching, by letting wrong win to the disadvantage of students and families, is that marginalized people are powerless against the very institutions intended to serve them. You have no idea how many FUSD employees warned me to be careful of you because of your ruthless nature, your penchant for retribution, and how protected you are from accountability from layers of district-level administration. I am a first hand witness to your destructiveness, your vindictiveness used in the abuse of power, and your protective layers and however will not be deterred by them. Your legacy is yours to own as you move to your new position. When the complaint is presented to the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights for discrimination of protected groups, and equity and access violations, your name, and your actions, will be central.

The arch of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice, Dr. Martin Luther King