Anthony Carnevale
Carnevale Realty & Loans, owner
Candidate Cajon Valley School District
Why are you running for school board?
My wife and I have 3 sons who have grown up in Cajon Valley Schools (Blossom Valley and Los Coches Creek Middle School) our oldest is now a freshman at El Capitan. During the lockdowns and mask mandates I became aware that student and parent interests were not represented in district policy which heavily favored the teacher’s union at the direct expense of student rights. Currently the district is offering up all pre-K thru 3rd graders, starting at three schools, to an extremist group to conduct a novel mental health experiment & referral scheme. This group (San Diego Youth Services) advertised a program to children this summer called “Let’s Talk Trans(itioning)” which they hosted in a facility they call “our safe place.” SDYS advertises psychiatric services including medication management for children transitioning. 4–9-year-olds are too little to be subjected to a novel mental health experiment by a group with zero experience studying children in this manner. Our school district and SDYS seek to bypass informed consent from parents, when I asked “why?” district officials basically said that it would be easier to conduct the study if all students were part of the study, and that asking parents’ permission would make that too difficult to achieve. This policy is offensive to student and parent rights and runs afoul of the Protection of Pupil Rights Act (PPRA), CA Ed. Code 51513, and Informed Consent which is enshrined in state and federal law. I’ve been advocating for a policy that is consistent with parent and student rights for the past 6 months, with some degree of success; the study has been delayed since July and the first two groups whose $3MM proposal had been approved by the board, were sent packing after I dragged the issue out into the sunlight for our community to see.
What are your top three priorities if elected?
Promote Academics-not social experiments, keep radical gender ideology and critical race theory out of our schools, more parent influence-less union influence.
With studies showing students are behind due to the COVID-19 pandemic, what would you do on the policy level in ensuring students behind are able to catch up
I will prioritize funding to classrooms first and oppose programs which burden teachers with additional duties like conducting mental health screenings on all their young students, this free-up time and resources for teachers to focus on phonics, literacy, mathematics, electives, and also identifying individual students who need help, as teachers have done well for generations.
Are you a proponent of armed teachers in classrooms as a way of addressing school safety for students, parents, and staff?
Yes, teachers should have the option. The idea that the only government facility not worthy of armed protection, is the one where hundreds of children show up every school day, is ridiculous and absurd. Our courthouses, assessor’s offices, politicians and celebrities have been protected to great affect by armed guards for ages.
How can the district support homeless students?
The district can find additional ways to work with the East County Transitional Living Center (ECTLC). San Diego Youth Services was a great organization for homeless students for 50 years but, unfortunately over the past few years, this group has taken an extreme turn and there’s a good chance their new services will cause harm to children in the coming years.
Under what circumstances is it appropriate to ban books from school classrooms and libraries?
Books which depict pornography have no place in a school library.
What past board efforts would you amplify or grow, and are there any which you would phase out?
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has been hijacked over the past few years by extremist groups who have twisted and disfigured SEL to support their race and gender theories and the grooming of students to become activists for radical causes, I would seek to phase out the current version of SEL and the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI). Cajon Valley’s Community Engagement Initiative uses a handout called “Root Cause Analysis for Student and Family Engagement” which says that some of the problems with community engagement are: a “Lack of understanding of historic and systemic racism and inequities, white supremacy & privilege” “Fear of too much focus on minority groups, not all students (fear of backlash from privileged)” “The system teaches new teachers [and other staff] how to teach children, but they teach them as if all students are the same (socioeconomic, rich, white, etc.).” (link https://www.cajonvalley.net/cms/lib/CA01902277/Centricity/Domain/2032/Handout%20-%20Root%20Cause%20Analysis%20for%20Student%20_%20Family%20Engagement%20-%20English.pdf), although these are perfectly acceptable political statements and beliefs that citizens are welcome to debate, the lack of evidence for these claims makes them inappropriate to form the basis for a community engagement initiative run by our school district, other districts in the state have used CEI to expel police officers from campus in the name of “equity.” I would like to amplify and grow programs which focus on getting school facilities back into good repair & modernizing facilities to handle today’s population of students. Nobody in the district seems to know when the last time the septic tanks were pumped & inspected at my son’s elementary school (pumping is supposed to be happen every 3 years with a commercial septic system), you’re not supposed to be able to smell septic tanks above ground, but at Blossom Valley two of the three septic tanks emit a foul odor, the riser lid on one tank is broken which allows students to lift the lid to throw things (toys, food wrappers, bottles, etc.) down in there . Many schools in Trustee Area 1 have been neglected by the district and our current representative on the board, for years.
What policies or processes would you propose to support student life such as anti-bullying training, efforts to reduce student vaping and drug use, and extracurricular events?
Vape detectors in middle school bathrooms seems like a good start. There is a tremendous amount of funding going toward Social and Emotional Learning. If we take an evidence-based approach, this funding ought to be directed toward arts, electives & athletics for students (all which have clear and demonstrated benefit for the social emotional well-being of children) rather than conducting mental health experiments on students and social experiments on our community which have no demonstrated benefit. Regarding bullying, any student who is found to have threatened the physical safety of, or to have harmed another student via bullying, should be punished and steps should be taken to ensure the victim is not subjected to further harassment by the student who was doing the bullying.
Cajon Valley is well-known for its STEAM programs. Do you feel there is equity to these programs throughout the district, and if not, what would you propose to give all students access to these programs?
All students should have access to programs offered by the district. “Equity” is a big part of the reason why many students face unequal access. “Equity” tends to equalize downward, dragging high performers down rather than lifting struggling students up which is what we ought to be doing.
What is it that makes the Cajon Valley Union School District special to you, and why?
My wife and I are lifelong residents of East County. My wife was among the first graduating class at Blossom Valley Elementary and all three of our sons went to school there. We have seen this district when it was among the top ranked districts in the state. We have watched as focus has been diverted from measurable academic achievement to more esoteric and non-academic pursuits and, as a consequence, we have seen the district’s ranking plummet to a point where Cajon Valley is now among the lower ranked districts in California. According to publicschoolreview.com average math proficiency in Cajon Valley is 32% and reading proficiency is 41%, both ranking well below the state average, and showing a marked decline from where the district was just 5 years ago. There’s enormous potential in this once great district, our East County Community is full of dynamic, giving, hard-working families who are ready to help return our schools greatness, for the benefit of all students.
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Source: East County Californian
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