Written by Mary Scyocurka
Dear Coronado Unified School District Trustee Valdes-Clayton,
Normally, I would open this letter informally as “Dear Esther”, because we have been friends for years. I am sad to say, though, that the person you have become is a stranger to me.
I am not sure how or why you have become such a progressive politician. I regret having voted for you and using my influence to get you elected.
I greatly admire your staunch pro-life stance. As far as I can tell, though, that is the only conservative aspect of your life. However, there is more to being a conservative than the religious aspects. You can say that you are conservative until you are blue in the face and quote the Bible, but that doesn’t make you conservative.
I think that one of the first red flags for me came when a CUSD art teacher required students to depict acts of suicide. This was during the lockdown and distance learning and the school district lost multiple students to suicide. The discussion was on the school board meeting agenda as supplemental materials. You did not support the children and parents on this issue. You sided with the teacher and agreed on the Dias that teachers should be able to use supplemental materials outside of the approved curriculum. No child should ever be asked to make a portrait of suicide.
When the Boys Varsity Basketball Championship game was won by the students of your school district, you chose to throw them under the bus. This is inexcusable. You were elected to protect these children. You were elected by the conservatives of Coronado. You completely turned your back on them.
Two CHILDREN are on suicide watch, because of the words that YOU chose to vilify our community. If anything happens to them, that will be on your conscience. You recently made light-hearted comments about Coronado being the second most searched school board in the country, due to tortilla-gate. It’s nice that you can find humor in this, while CHILDREN are suffering, due to your actions.
You said that the tortilla tossing was “racist, colorist, and classist.” By the way, “colorist” is not a word. It is a progressive term. You try to claim that you never called any person racist. Well, is it possible to tell someone that their act was racist without inferring that they are racist? Are you accusing the boys of racist acts, but pretending that you are not calling them racist? Semantics. Everyone who has read your words understands and has interpreted them as: even the school board considers the Coronado community to be racist.
Your chosen words went nationwide. You continue to say that you wanted to defuse the situation, when in fact, you made matters worse. You told the world that Coronado is racist. I and most conservatives are tired of being labeled as racists. If we voted for Trump, if we believe that Covid-19 came from a Wuhan lab, or if we support protecting our borders, we are labeled racists. Racists, Racists, Racists. And you joined the bandwagon.
Hundreds of people gathered to beg you to retract your statement. Instead, you decided to double down. You refused to apologize to your community for calling our members racist, the people who elected you to represent THEM. Instead, you talked of “restorative justice”. You said that the majority of the community agreed with you. Why would you even think that? You obviously are referring to the greater San Diego community, not Coronado. One email went to the CUSD board saying that you, as an elected Latina, must represent the entire Latino community. No. No, you must represent the children of Coronado.
Interestingly, the President of the Latino American Political Association joined the rally of people calling for your apology. You have repeated your stance that you applied the ethic of “Reconciliation/Forgiveness in Christ in Apology to offended Party”. You had no problem apologizing to the athletes of Orange Glen, who called your own students the N-word. You repeat that intent is not necessary to define the crime. The entire county perceives your statement as meaning that the Coronado boys are racist, regardless of your intent. You need to apologize to those whom you have personally harmed.
After the Coronado High School Varsity Basketball Championship game, you contacted me to make sure that I understood that your statement was an act to diffuse the situation, which you re-iterated at a recent meeting of conservatives. However, your statement made matters worse. You tried to appease the Latino community of Escondido while encouraging Marxist anarchists to attend our local school board meeting and organize a BLM march in our town. You diffused nothing. You made our town more angry and divided. You made things worse.
You also made it clear to me that Superintendent Mueller was acting on your behest. I asked you to confirm that, and you did. I was shocked. Mueller implemented No Place for Hate under your watch. At the recent conservative meeting, you said that you were okay with it because you made sure that the sexual education portions were removed. Actually, as far as I can tell, the sex-ed portions have NOT been removed. Also, that is not the main concern for the people of Coronado.
No Place for Hate (NPfH), which you helped to implement is the K-12 version of CRT! You were asked to read the handbook but refused. It requires a certain percentage of children in a school to sign a pledge without the knowledge nor consent of parents. Minors! NPfH divides children by race. Students are asked to dissect their identities. They must identify as oppressors or oppressed. But it is no wonder, Esther, that you approve NPfH in our schools since you approve of identity politics, evident in your latest interviews.
You have been caught talking out of both sides of your mouth. You tell a conservative group that you are fighting against NPfH when you supported it in our district. You also said that you recently asked the Superintendent to find other programs to replace NPfH. This obviously didn’t occur in a board meeting, since the most recent was canceled. Is this another Brown Act violation? If indeed, you did ask the Superintendent to find a suitable replacement for NPfH, it was NOT of your own volition, but because multiple parents called on you and the other school board trustees to remove this hateful program from our school district.
You ended your recent “conservative” presentation by saying that with or without the support of your party, you would carry on. Does that mean that you realize that the Republican Party sees you for what you are and will not support you? Or does that mean that you have officially turned your back on the Republican Party?
If you were truly a conservative, you would retract Coronado Board Policy 0415 and remove No Place for Hate immediately. We have ONE conservative on the school board, and it is NOT you.
