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Parents, Indigenous advocates urge Greenfield district to invest LCAP funds in student supports rather than police
Summary
Multiple speakers during public comment at the May 29 Greenfield Union School District board meeting asked trustees not to use LCAP/supplemental funds to contract police officers and instead to invest in bilingual services, speech therapy, mental health and community workers.
Parents, students and community organizers urged the Greenfield Union School District board of trustees May 29 to direct Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) supplemental and concentration funds toward student supports — including mental health services, speech-language therapy, bilingual instruction and community liaisons — rather than contracting police or school resource officers.
Speakers affiliated with Parents United and local indigenous and community organizations said they had identified high rates of chronic absenteeism and suspensions among students with special needs and students experiencing homelessness and argued that adding police to campuses would not address those root causes.
"We don't consider that suspending students be the solution because these practices place youth at risk and affect their educational outcomes," said Liliana Fajardo, identified as a parents' organizer with Parents United. Fajardo and other speakers asked the district to include parents and community-based organizations in planning and to pursue culturally relevant, proactive programs instead of policing.
Organizer Alan Maguedo (affiliation: Padres for Equity in Education / Parents United) told the board the district had proposed using LCAP supplemental and concentration funds to pay a contract for police officers and said that money "is assigned by the state according to the law LCFF to benefit the students with high needs." He added the district was projecting more than $100,000 for the contract and said that, based on the district's data, chronic absenteeism and test scores had not improved under prior use of police on campuses.
Speakers cited specific program priorities they want funded: in-person speech and language therapy for students with special needs; expanded bilingual academic support in English and Spanish; more mental-health services and arts, music and sports programming; after-school tutoring targeted to students who arrive without English or Spanish proficiency; and hiring community workers who speak indigenous languages to serve as liaisons between families and schools.
Several speakers from indigenous communities said their identity had been used rhetorically without substantive follow-through. "It is unacceptable that the terms inclusion or equity are used only to meet requirements on paper, while in practice, we are rendered invisible," said Alejandra Campos, who said the district had not delivered promised investments to support indigenous students.
Student speaker Janet Sanovio described experiences she said amounted to casual erasure when teachers discouraged students from speaking indigenous languages or Spanish. "We will not continue to allow future generations of indigenous students to feel ashamed, to be shunned, and to hide who they are and where they come from to fit a narrative," she said.
Speakers also asked for greater transparency and parent involvement in the superintendent search and other major decisions. A Parents United speaker said the group had attempted to participate in the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) process but found engagement difficult and insufficiently transparent.
District staff and trustees acknowledged the public comments during the meeting; the board later approved routine consent items and the superintendent contract. The district did not take a formal vote on the policing contract or change the LCAP allocation during the May 29 meeting.
