PrintCalifornia school board mocks parents wanting schools to open as pot-smokers 'looking for babysitters'
Ever wonder what school board members are saying in private about parents with kids in schools unhappy about the forever-COVID school closings?
An unwitting Zoom recording from the Oakley School Board of Contra Costa County, in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, cleared the air on that:
That was a Zoom school board meeting they thought was private, but actually, was full of parents. Reason magazine picked out some of the money quotes:
"They want their babysitters back," Lisa Brizendine, a trustee of Oakley Union Elementary School District, told her colleagues during a pre-meeting session that they believed was not open to the public.
School board member Kim Beede mentioned a negative interaction with some frustrated parents? a frustrated parent, then described her own mindset: "Bitch, if you are going to call me out, I am going to fuck you up."
Another member of the board theorized that parents want their kids to go back to school so they can spend the day getting high.
According to ABC7, that third guy was one Richie Masada, who doesn't seem to have any social media presence:
Board member Richie Masadas implies on the call that parents just want their kids back in school so they can sit home and smoke pot. He says when your kids are home there is no more Friday.
"My brother had a delivery service for medical marijuana and he delivered to parents while their kids were at school," Masadas said. Other members can be heard laughing.
According to the East County Times' reading:
This prompted a "right" from the other board members with Masadas talking about his brother having a delivery service for medical marijuana and clientele with their kids in school — which again, prompted laughs from the board with one board member calling it "awesome".
Masadas continued saying "when you have your kids at home, no more Friday" and began quoting from the movie Friday "smoke dog[.]"
Wow. Just wow. They not only mocked parents behind their backs, but seemed to bond together as they did it.
Then the giggling stopped as the board slowly realized that their Zoom meeting was public, not private. The "babysitter" woman, board president Lisa Brizendine, tried to backtrack after their hilarity, spouting political pieties, but it was too late. The cat was out of the bag.
They really, really, really hate parents, and obviously, they despise students. They have an amazingly cold spot for people who want schools to re-open and want them to shut up and go away. Their message was to just leave them to their lucrative bunny-slipper hog wallow because the schools are going to remain closed forever, just as the teachers' unions would like.
Parent Rebecca MacKowiak started a Change.org petition to get rid of these people (apparently since closed off, but reportedly drawing 2,000 signatures in the district of 5,000 as of Thursday), writing:
On 02/17/2021 at 4pm the Oakley Unified Elementary School District Board of Trustees held a meeting online. Before the start of the meeting the board members were speaking to each other as parents logged on. They did not realize they were being broadcast and that the public could hear them. During that time board members decided to speak in a VERY disrespectful way about parents in the school district, including using profanity, speaking about parents using marijuana, and that parents just wanted their babysitters back.
Parents were tuned in to learn if we will be sending our kids back to school soon and if not, why. There has been a lack of communication from the board and this was the first communication we heard.
A recall would cost the district money that should be going to the kids. I am asking that the board members to resign immediately due to their egregious behavior. They should no longer represent the parents, teachers, and children in this school district.
School board president Lisa Brizendine did resign a few hours ago, one step ahead of that Change.org petition, which, if it went on, would likely end up with some stratospheric and newsworthy total.
School boards, which are typically elected but not typically paid attention to much by voters, in California, at least, tend to be creatures of the teachers' unions.
Who is Lisa Brizendine? Well, according to Voter's Edge, a voter election guide, she's not very academic, having majored in "liberal studies" from Cal State Chico and getting her two master's degrees in topics like "cross cultural studies" from matchbox for-profit universities with no competitive admissions. She first won election to her seat in 2016, defeating an incumbent and another candidate with 50.7% of the vote. She was the only one who was unioned up.
She's endorsed by:
Here's Lisa Brizendine's political statement, complete with a Freudian slip (emphasis mine):
Students should be at the forefront of all of our decision making as a board as their needs should always come first. The teachers and staff are the backbone of the schools and their commitment to their students should never be underscored, they are amazing, caring and essential members of the school community. Additionally, for the future of our students, access to technology and cutting edge instructional resources needs to be explored to ensure that our students are college and career ready. I am a candidate for the Oakley School Board because I felt the call to serve the students, employees and parents of the Oakley community. There is not currently a teacher on the board and I feel that a teacher who understands Oakley and the dynamics could have a positive impact on the decisions made by the board. As a former Oakley teacher, I am in a unique position to serve in this capacity because I understand the issues that Oakley faces. I also personally know many teachers, aides and other classified staff and know their commitment to their students and families which is often overlooked by the administration in Oakley.
Yeah, we know, Lisa. Nobody'd underscore teachers caring about students, because based on your hot-mic moment, they don't.
As for the other two, Beebe seems to be someone with thug instincts. She might be a masseuse and 30-year housewife if this LinkedIn page is the same person, which seems incongruous. Her personality doesn't suggest a masseuse anyone would enjoy going to.
And Masadas? He seems to have a pretty strong knowledge of all things marijuana — not just the "medical marijuana" industry, but the pop culture around movies centered on smoking pot. No social media presence, which raises a few questions as to why.
Thus far, they haven't resigned, but the pressure will be on them to do it. It's not known if they took teachers' union money, but based on the political power structure in California, it seems that everyone takes teachers' union money if he wants to win any elections. Californians remember how Marshall Tuck, a teachers' union foe and champion of charter schools, was demonized by teachers' union–financed ads in 2014 and 2018 in the state superintendent of education campaigns. The spending in those campaigns dwarfed what was spent in the gubernatorial election.
And who represents Oakley in Congress?
That's Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), who has been blasted by local Republicans at least for being in the pocket of the teachers' unions. In fact, three teachers unions donated $139,056 to him, according to Union Facts, which added up amount to his largest donor from a field of 67 unions. He has said nothing, not criticizing the school board and certainly not pressuring the teachers' unions.
OpenSecrets ranks him as #15 in Congress for taking teachers' union cash and #3 in California, behind only Sacramento valley's Rep. John Garamendi, whose 9th District abuts Oakley's McNerney's 3rd, as well as northeast-of–Los Angeles Rep. Judy Chu.
And that might mean something. Brizendine resigned, not because she was sorry, but because someone knew that those remarks were trouble. The call for all of them to get thrown out is continuing, and it's not merely Republicans making the call. School reopenings are becoming a fiercely bipartisan issue, with even the Los Angeles Times editorial page blasting the teachers' unions.
Maybe that has to do with the fact that Oakley, long a solid blue district, has been tracking, from the perspective of Democrats, dangerously red.
McNerney's district has been fanatically Democrat for decades, pulling in upwards of 88% or so of voters — except in the last election, where Democrats drew in just 57% of the vote, which is a significant slide.
Now we have these charmers, weirdos on a local school board, saying what they all must be saying in private about their hatred of parents and students...and they got found out. If this is what it takes to rouse voters, to pull support for the public school racket and start electing representatives not in the teachers' union pockets, transparency of this kind is a good thing.
Image: Screen shot from "Anonymous" on shareable YouTube.
