Shame on the Fontana Unified School District! Members of their Board of Education unanimously agreed last week to bar registered citizens from every school in their district. The decision applies to all registered citizens, including parents of students in that district, regardless of the offense for which they were convicted and regardless of whether they pose a current danger.
What makes this terrible decision worse is that the school board’s decision was in reaction to a few angry parents who ignorantly proclaimed during a school board meeting that the presence of registered citizens on campus would place their children in danger.
The school district dug themselves into an even deeper hole today when they issued a letter describing and explaining the school board’s decision. According to that letter, the district now has “a firm practice of zero-tolerance with regard to sex offenders on our campuses.”
The letter also explained that the board’s action “was taken in response to the concerns of our students, parents and community….over a new state law.” Never mind that the law was passed two years ago and that there were no reported incidents of a child being assaulted by a registered citizen during that time.
The action taken by the Fontana Unified School District must be stopped! Because if it is not stopped, the same action will be taken by school districts throughout the state of California. In order to prevent that from happening, the decision of the Fontana Unified School District will soon be challenged in court.
And in the meantime, hundreds of children – children of registered citizens – will be harmed because they will be deprived of their parents’ protection and devotion. The children of registered citizens will not be taken to, or picked up from school, by their parents. The children of registered citizens will not have the support of their parents during their academic and athletic activities.
The decision of the Fontana school district reminds me of the night when we testified in opposition to a law being considered by the Santa Ana City Council that would prohibit registered citizens from visiting parks in that city. After listening to angry and ignorant citizens, one member of the Council stated that she would not allow her children to visit city parks if registered citizens might be present. She then loudly proclaimed that if someone’s children were going to visit a park in that city, it would be her children and not the children of registered citizens.
Following that proclamation, the Santa Ana City Council unanimously passed the park restriction and for a period of time registered citizens were prohibited from visiting those parks. Also during that period of time, many children of registered citizens were unable to visit the parks with their registered citizen parent.
A series of lawsuits were later filed challenging park restrictions such as those passed by Santa Ana and as a result of those challenges, the parks in that city as well as the parks in other cities throughout the state of California were reopened to registered citizens.
We expect the same result in our challenge to Fontana’s shameful decision to prohibit all registered citizens from visiting schools the 45 elementary, middle schools and high schools in that district.
Read all of Janice’s Journal
Related
Fontana School Board votes to prohibit all access to registered sex offenders on campuses
http://www.speroforum.com/a/NIIPTFJTUD5/78850-California-Parents-seek-to-keep-sex-offenders-off-school-campuses?utm_medium=top+3&utm_campaign=NIIPTFJTUD5&utm_content=78850&utm_source=front&utm_term=California+Parents+seek+to+keep+sex+offenders+off+school+campuses#.V-L6rbhE7Dc
Thank you Janice, this is just unbelievable. It must STOP here. Fontana. City Hall. County of San Bernardino. STATE of California. PERIOD. No revisiting Santa Ana City Parks OC nightmare.
Get the fainting couches ready, one of “those people” are on our school campuses targeting “our childrenz.”
Again, we see the pearl clutchers passing a preemptive measure to a nonexistent problem. They might as well be having a war on dust. Makes about as much sense. Fontana is not promoting safety, they’re promoting fear, ignorance, hate and dysfunction.
What really makes me spew coals is they think children reserve the right to reasonable expectation of safety while at school, but they’re okay with having a SO’s reasonable expectation of safety in his/her home circumvented.
You’ve already caused a ruckus. The school board cancelled today’s regularly-scheduled (along with special) meeting (Sep 21), and have rescheduled it for next week. While they’ve cancelled special meetings before, what makes today’s cancellation more apparent is that this is the first regularly-scheduled meeting they’ve cancelled. That means they are worried about the legal ramifications that are about to come their way! Great job!
http://www.fusd.net/departments/board/Dates.stm
(over a new state law) (passed two years ago) ?
You are right in all you said Janice. Good for you for jumping on this. Yes, it absolutely will spread to every school district if not stopped in its tracks.
I’m wondering what the legal argument would be against it. 290 specifically says registrants cannot go on school property without permission, I think it says permission from the principal. This board action would be ordering the principal how to respond: No.
You know more about these things than me. However, just to try to be a bit helpful, let me suggest one possible argument, actually gleened from your previous lawsuits.
290 says the registrants must get the permission of the principal — so 290 clearly is registrants can go on campus, although the principal has a say in that. Well, it would seem to me that in 290 saying individual registrants can seek the principal’s permission IMPLICITLY is saying that request must be given individual and serous consideration separately from other requests.
I would stretch a bit and say that in saying you can seek the permission of the principal, it clearly is barring a blanket policy. It is barring the district from setting its own policy rather than following the one prescribed in 290. And that would seem to mean that there must be a legitimate, justified reason to deny — or it would be a blanket policy by another approach. The courts have already ruled in similar matters that 290 preempts local action in territory it clearly has addressed, as it has about registrants entering school property. So the locals cannot make their own rules, they can only follow 290. And 290, as I have just said, requires an individual consideration and a good reason to deny, not a blanket policy, whether by board decree or principal bias.
And of course, that means the board cannot take this action outside of 290 under its own authority.
I don’t know education law, but perhaps there is something in there about a parent or sibling or even aunt or uncle having some kind of right or standing to participate in their child’s school. Something for the researchers to look into. If so, it would cement that a legitimate reason would be needed to overcome those points I have made. Simply that they don’t like registrants is not a legitimate reason.
One thing to point out to consider: The courts in the past have ruled that the “state” had preempted the locals on the issues in question. Technically, the school board is a STATE district, not a local district. This is why they often do not even follow a local jurisdiction’s borders. I’m not sure how or if this mixes things up, but the thought is that makes the argument that the state (under 290) has preempted the state (the school district)! Aargh.
One last thought, and I think a major one: It seems to me that if we were to argue that there can be no blanket policy, each request must be considered on its merits individually, and there must be good reason to reject it, then we also must follow up by suing when someone (or someones) is rejected anyway. That is because they will simply reject everyone anyway, and state the reason as some specious, groundless, generic crap. That kind of rejection is just a blanket policy by another approach, and if we don’t stop that, then the entire fight will have been pointless. So, first stop the board’s blanket policy, the later follow up by suing over someone being rejected, and not necessarily even in the Fontana district, maybe several different applications being rejected. To take that case to a different district would really scare principals all over the state, they would not see it as localized. And the only way to make that lawsuit, of maybe a couple/few, have impact is to win a very large settlement or verdict. A big verdict is the only thing that will stop other principals from blanket policies. Simply an agreement to stop the practice and pay attorney fees would not make the impact needed. An example needs to be made.
That might be no help to you, but I just thought I toss out a little food for thought.
My question would be how will they enforce that at the entrance of a high school football game?? Answer I would not be surprised at all if one or all the board members are on the take with that company that has that photo scan for offenders software. There’s is no other way they could control a sporting event. Something to watch….
I’ve only been on here a year, and I’m from Texas, so I’ve missed a few things.
Would this issue open up both a challenge to the School as well as a challenge to 290’s provision since it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that has already established a parent’s right to participate completely in the raising of their children as being a fundamental right? I think they stopped using Strict Scrutiny on parental rights after 2000 but it probably isn’t needed and could be used again if SCOTUS chooses.
Isn’t banishment unconstitutional? Why aren’t DUI’s or any convict subjected to the same banishment?
According to the analysis of SB326 before the assembly in 2013,
“Under current law, parents and guardians of pupils have a right to participate in the education of their children (e.g., attend special education hearings, parent-teacher conferences, expulsion hearings, etc.). According to the Association of California School Administrators, when notified that a parent or guardian of a pupil is a person who must register as a sex offender, principals honor the right of the parent or guardian by making accommodations as to the place and time the parent or guardian may participate in his or her child’s education. For example, a principal may
make alternative drop off and pick up arrangements, schedule meetings after school, or escort the parent or guardian in and out of a school site.”
Also, the law, SB 326, came into existence itself when a parent became outraged that a registrant obtained the principal’s permission to volunteer at a school event. So SB 326 required two week notification of parents in addition to permission from the administrator. Now more uninformed parents want to create zero tolerance and zero intelligence and feel they have a right to disregard both policy and law in order to obey the hormones produced in the amygdalae. And it is always registrants who are claimed to be irrational acting on base instinct. At least at the state level these types of rules have to go before several committees, and there is a process whereby cooler heads may prevail. Still, this is a downward trend. I feel for those trying to raise children under these laws. This school board has added one more bomb to the minefield registrants have to navigate through in order to live a productive life.
Thanks for your diligence, Janice.
I already sent an email to the board members stating all you pointed out, Janice. I added that i hope their children don’t grow to show such bigotry to their neighbors.
I also wonder what would be the outcome of a group of offenders demonstrating at the next board mtgs. They would probably have it on school property so they wouldn’t have to face them.
The only thing I know about Fontana is Kaiser Hospital where I was born. Shortly afterwards, my parents had the sense enough to get up out of that town
Suppose you’re a registrant on probation with a walking stick standing within legal distance of a school and you see a rottweiler charging toward a 5 year old kid on the play ground. As John Quiñones would say,
“What would you do?”
Be a hero. Risk violating probation & Fontana city law. Run onto the grounds with your stick to beat that dog silly or shoo it away from the kid
OR
Do nothing and just watch from a safe distance. You don’t want to risk being sent back to the pen although you MAY get charged for doing nothing but even that penalty would less severe than a felony probation violation plus breaking city law. But of course you will be painted as coward for doing nothing
OR
The 3rd option is run for help or calll 9-11 even while the kid is getting mauled. All your bases would be covered. You won’t violate probation or any laws. However, some folks would still look at you as a coward but they know at least you tried to seek help
We need a version of Janice in Florida. Those same restrictions do exist in Florida, and have existed for a number of years. As a registered citizen I have been banned from participation on my children’s activities, including graduations and concerts.
Fontana declares war on children of parents deemed unsuitable for entry to school campuses regardless of their accomplishments and additions to the academic community.
The rights of these children to enjoy the same parental support in their scholarly achievements along with their parents right to assist in their safety and goals have been ruthlessly torn from them without due process in a community which seems indifferent to the needs of children already suffering from too many fear mongering laws.
What child doesn’t want and need their parents in attendance for acceptance of their awards, open house, meetings with their teachers and etc.
This is institutionalized child abuse against children of registrants sponsored by the cowardly dimwits on FUSD who cowered to the mob of even more ignorant and self righteous parents.
It is obvious the environmental contamination from the steel industry must have left many brain dead residents as evidenced by their delusions that they above state law. You’ll find many of these hypocrites lined up in church, which is what makes it really nauseating at the very least.
They don’t call Fontana “Fontucky” for nothing
Even my little town in Texas has regulations governing what Sex Offenders can or can’t do, but they somehow managed to have them make sense for the majority of it.
Here, a sex offender can’t go to a school unless they have a child there and a reason to go. Basically, they just don’t want an offender hanging out there for no reason.
Similar thing with parks. You can go if you have kids and they are with you. If you don’t have kids, you can go if you are using the facilities but can’t loiter in an area where children are present and must leave if requested.
It’s a shame most places go overboard and over-broad with restrictions instead of narrowly tailoring them to just stop the kind of activity they want to stop.
I noticed that the school board and the population of the district is heavily Hispanic. This is a group that historically has known the negative affects of categorizing, generalizing, and oppressive laws. How soon we forget.
I wonder what steps the school system (the board, teachers, staff, administrators and volunteers) are taking off-paper to identify children who live with FCD parents or guardians? What is the policy they do not dare write?
In order to enforce this illegal rule, the school system in Fontucky will have to conduct research and identify those children and watch the adults they associate with to ensure that no FCD parent is on school property. Those children then become a sub-class of student, not part of the good kids, but considered as bad as the FCD parent because of the extra work the system must perform to enforce this rule.
The unions would surely have an issue with their teachers having to be covert spies and paramilitary protectors (sort of a brown shirt) for the School Board’s illegal policy. The union will want to increase salaries and benefits because of the additional danger posed by marauding FCD in the hallways and bleachers.
It will only take ONE incident of a teacher stopping one of the marked kids and the adult with them to drastically alter and potentially ruin forever the potential of a child. If another child OR parent is within earshot of the questioning and even if the adult with the child is a non-FCD, that child is forever marked as the child of a FCD, and we all know the pains, harassment and harsh treatment out children face in school if they are outed as having a FCD parent.
So I counter that while the rights of the FCD are indeed hampered, the illegal action taken by our enemies on the Fontucky School Board are endangering children, not protecting them.
If the child of a FCD is leaked by as teacher or a volunteer, they WILL become the target of bullying, harassment and unfair grading practices. This drastically increases the potential for retaliation (I prefer retribution as the proper term) against the child enemies in the school in the form of extreme violent outbursts such as mass shooting or stabbings or in the form of more subtle retribution like mass poisoning of meals being served to that child’s enemies using dimethylmercury or some other effective agent.
The only way they can actively enforce this policy is to identify FCD kids. When the information leaks, the child will be harassed, attacked physically, treated differently by teachers and be transferred to the loser-schools. I can tell you this from experience, not conjecture.
So the Fontana School Board has officially taken steps to endanger their entire student body and at a minimum has determined that the children of FCD are not worthy of the same love, attention and support as “good kids.”
For that, I hereby declare the Fontana School Board AND their families as our enemy.
GET THEM Janice ! go in there like you got a War pony! I will burn some sage and blow a prayer your way
Does any school board decision to ban registered people from campus help? Does not sound like it given this situation.
Is the boy really a victim here if he knows what he is doing through blackmail? Shouldn’t he face charges too for his felonious act? The boy has a sheet of previous crimes, so he knew what he was doing. Is she a victim maybe of a con artist? Will she get her money back with interest?
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2017/01/24/sex-middle-schooler-cost-teacher-28k-blackmail-payments-disd-police-say
Teachers on the inside and on campus already
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/state–regional-govt–politics/cases-improper-teacher-student-relationships-hit-year-high/UE0uA8f83tzJGHNrp5GkwO/