West Valley parent and staff member calls instructional materials policy change discriminatory

Heidi Mockel, who identified herself to the board as both a parent and a district employee, told the board on Oct. 14 she opposes a revision made last spring to Policy 2020, which the district now interprets to mean parent and community positions on the instructional materials committee may not be filled by staff who are also parents.

Mockel told trustees she reviewed recorded board meetings from last year and did not find evidence of public discussion before the change. She said the policy change “is discriminatory and exclusionary” and that it sends a message to staff parents that their employment “does not cancel out my identity as a parent, nor my rights as a private citizen, nor my responsibilities as a taxpayer in this district.”

Why this matters: the instructional materials committee advises the district on textbook and curricular resources. Mockel said the revision sidelines staff who are also parents—people she described as “highly informed, deeply invested” stakeholders—and asked the board to reconsider the change.

Board response: Board members were not recorded taking formal action on the policy at this meeting. The board included ‘‘communications/response to public comment’’ on the agenda as a placeholder; no board motion to amend or repeal the Policy 2020 revision appears in the Oct. 14 record. Trustees did not debate the policy extensively at the meeting; public comment closed after Mockel’s remarks.

Provenance: remarks recorded during the Oct. 14 public comment period were entered into the meeting record and are available in the meeting transcript.