School district needs to explain principal’s demotion

Recent news that Juan Rodriguez has sued San Rafael City Schools once again spotlighted the fact that there has been no statement to clarify the reason for his demotion.

In March 2020, when he was demoted despite the protests of Venetia Valley School parents and community members, the San Rafael Board of Education did not disclose any reasons for the demotion other than teacher complaints.

Without any such information, parents and community members assumed that it was an institutional racist decision. Even with a reference to teacher complaints, that still reflects racism because, at the time, there were only five Latinos among the San Rafael district’s 258 elementary school teachers, as reported in Marin Independent Journal.

I am not a Latina, but I do have a close relationship with a Latino family. For 15 years, a wonderful woman from Guatemala helped care for my two kids while I worked. When she started working for our family, she had her own baby, a girl who was born two weeks after my son. The woman took care of them together, and they spent time together like brother and sister. We had similar values and approaches to our children regarding everything from food to education to physical activity to music and today we celebrate birthdays and holidays together and our children are strongly connected.

For this woman, education is a primary focus. It is also a focus for her husband and her extended family of six brother-inlaws and four of her own sisters, all of whom live in Marin County. One of her nephews graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a degree in computer science and is now employed at Pandora. As evidenced by this entire family, Marin’s Latino population is intelligent and upwardly mobile, particularly because they have access to great public schools and organizations that support their education beyond high school.

Rodriguez understood how important this access is, which is one reason that he should have been promoted in the San Rafael district instead of demoted. His “I Can University” program, which he started in 2012, focuses on ensuring that every student is “capable of college preparatory work, gaining admission to a university and succeeding while there,” as described in the program statement.

This successful program reflects Rodriguez’s strong, positive leadership, which for a White person would have been an element of promotion to district administration. Having someone like Rodriguez in a district leadership role would be particularly important for San Rafael City Schools because its student population is 60% Latino.

Instead, in his suit, Rodriguez is claiming that his demotion is “discrimination based on race and retaliation for conflicts with the district on racial bias and equity issues,” as reported in the IJ.

I recently chatted about this issue with my friend’s daughter, who is a junior at American University in Washington, D.C. She had family and friends who attended Venetia Valley and Rodriguez’s demotion took up all their attention. She commented that Rodriguez’s impact on the school’s value was very important.

Before he became principal, among some of her family and friends, Venetia Valley was considered an underperforming school and neglected by the district. She attended Davidson Middle School. She and her peers viewed Venetia Valley as a small school without the same resources they had at Davidson.

While Rodriguez led the school, the perception of Venetia Valley moved out of that role as “less valuable.” She and her peers continue to view his demotion as a racial issue.

Interestingly, she is well aware that there has been no official explanation about his demotion and that there must be something else happening behind the scene. Without a clear explanation, the background of this situation reflects institutional racism that should be eliminated.

The district’s continued silence regarding this situation has a very negative impact on its standing.

Without information, parents and community members assume the action against Juan Rodriguez at Venetia Valley School was an institutional racist decision.