Jamestown School trustee steps down in protest
Cathy Stone-carlson, a longtime member of the Jamestown School District Board of Trustees, announced her resignation at a meeting Monday night after a 3-2 vote to bring students back on campus next month amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Stone-carlson, who was first elected to the board in 1989 and has served as its president in recent years, said in an interview on Tuesday that she made the difficult decision to step down because she believes it’s too early to reopen the school for in-person learning.
“Everything is indicating that we are going to have a surge in the fall with flu season and COVID,” she said. “I personally, based on that, do not believe it’s safe to send our kids and teachers back into that kind of environment.”
Trustee Cheri Bunney was also opposed to bringing students back on campus, but she could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Stone-carlson said she felt a “personal, moral obligation” to resign after the board’s vote to bring students
back because she wouldn’t be able to live with it if one student, teacher or member of their family gets sick and loses their life.
“We don’t have the information we need to make a decision about whether it’s safe to reopen school,” she said. “That’s just how i feel. I know there’s a lot of pressure on people to reopen, but it’s hopefully a oncein-a-lifetime event for all of us. I would rather keep our students and community safe then jump in and make a mistake that we can’t reverse.”
The other three board members voted in favor of bringing students back on Oct. 8, beginning with transitional kindergarten through first grade and special-day classes. Second through eighth grade students would follow Oct. 12.
Families will also be given the option for their students to remain on distance learning or independent study, of which a recent survey found that 20.4 percent would prefer. The survey found that nearly 76 percent were in favor of a return to on-campus learning.
Students will return in a “hybrid model” that will see certain groups attend on different days, with all grades doing distance learning on Wednesdays.
All students in transitional kindergarten through fourth grade will attend four days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday due to the smaller class sizes. Fifththrough eighth-graders will be split into two groups, referred to as “cohorts,” with one attending on Monday and Tuesday and the other on Thursday and Friday.
The school will operate under all of the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California Department Public of Health, and county Public Health Department, including temperature checks and symptom screenings, physical distancing, mask wearing, and staggered entrance and pick-up times.
Many other school districts in the county began bringing students back on campus earlier this month, including some without the hybrid model that will be used at Jamestown Elementary School.
Twain Harte School announced on Sept. 20 that a staff member tested positive for the virus that has been attributed to the deaths of more than 200,000 people in the United States since March, but the individual had no other close contacts with students or other staff.
The county has not reported a new case since last Wednesday, but Stone-carlson said she fears that will change as more schools fully reopen and cooler weather sets in.
“It’s warm and sunny, everybody can stay out as much as possible right now, but that’s not going to happen in a month from now,” she said. “Have we ever had this many people in a 100 years die from a flu virus? No. It’s a pandemic. I think slowing down and letting us get through a good chunk of the flu season to see where we’re at just makes sense.”
While the safety of students, teachers and families was foremost in Stone-carlson’s decision to step down, she said she’s also concerned about how the insurance pool for all districts doesn’t cover liability issues related to COVID-19.
“If we had a COVID incident and someone brought a lawsuit and we lost, we would be bankrupt,” she said. “That’s not OK, and our job as a board is to protect the school and school district.”
Stone-carlson said she first ran for the board in 1989 during a budget crisis that threatened the job of a kindergarten teacher.
The position was saved after Stone-carlson and others on the board voted to stop paying for medical benefits that the five elected trustees previously received, which cost the district about $5,000 each per year.
“I think it’s one of the more important elected positions that a person could serve,” she said of being on a school board. “You’re supporting our youngsters in our community, and they’re our most precious resource.”
Stone-carlson served two terms before taking a four-year hiatus, but has served consistently for the past 20 years. She won re-election in 2018 with the most votes out of four candidates running for three seats.
Trustee Gary Wilson, who made the motion to reopen the school on Oct. 8, said that everyone on the board looked up to Stone-carlson and will miss her.
Wilson said that he’s in favor of reopening the school because the teachers and most of the families also want students back on campus. He also believes that prolonged distance learning is harming students’ social and educational growth.
“They’re not getting any social time at all with their friends, and they miss school,” he said. “I feel they’re not getting the education that they need with this distance learning, so they need to be back in school.”
Wilson also said that the risk of an outbreak is on everyone’s mind, but he believes the school is taking the right precautions to prevent that.
“We don’t want to see any of these kids getting sick, but the school is doing a very good job,” he said. “If we have another outbreak, we go back to distance learning, but you can’t just sit at home because who knows how long this is going to last.”