On Thursday, the Antioch Unified School District Board of Trustees held a Special Meeting with the intention of discussing “Use of Force”, however, due to lack of information available, the board ultimately tabled the item for up to 60-days.
Householder called the meeting after video surfaced from the schools security firm, Strategic Threat Management, detaining a student after allegedly fighting on campus, attacking staff and security while resisting arrest–the District statement can be viewed by clicking here.
The Antioch Police Department confirmed the student was placed under arrest and transported to the Antioch Police Department for assaulting a school employee, fighting on a school campus, and resisting or delaying an arrest.
Prior to the Discussion, Trustee Mary Rocha asked the Superintendent Stephanie Anello if she received any calls or complaints about use of force. Anello said she did not. (6:35 min mark)
Rocha stated she called the administration, many of them, at the high school and they received no complaints, but what they did receive were calls of support and thanking them in how they handled the situation while preventing others from being hurt.
After more than 60-pages of public comments and discussion, the Board voted 4-1 (Householder dissenting) to table the Use of Force Item for 60-days so they can close the investigation of the Antioch High School incident, gather District policy, Education Code Policy and possible law enforcement policy regarding use of force and safety plans.
During the items public comments, (15:15 min mark) Board President Ellie Householder attempted to censor public comments stating many of them were not related to the policies and procedures around use of force and asked general comments be removed.
Rocha shot back stating people are talking about the incident which was why they were having the meeting.
Householder replied she was not going to sit there and listen to public comments bashing a student.
Rocha again shot back saying she was hearing more comments about Householder and that she called for an emergency meeting.
The board then voted (3-2 with Rocha and Hack dissenting) to take a break so staff could look at the Public Comments. After an approximately 20-min break, all comments were read after Anello stated she spoke with the Attorney who explained because the comments are in relationship to the incident which prompted a use of force item on the agenda, they should be read.
The Board then voted to table the item so more information can be gathered on the incident along with policies related to safety and education codes.
The Board voted 3-2 (Householder and Hernandez dissenting) to table the item regarding Board of Education Notification Policies and Procedures for up to 60-days.
Meeting Recap:
If I wrote out what transpired in full, its almost unbelievable, so I encourage folks to go to the video and make up your own opinions after watching.
- Over 60 pages of public comments
- Board President attempting to censor public comments when comments were negative about her
- Lack an understanding of Roberts Rules of Order
- Questioned and ignoring staffs on processes regarding on making a motion, substitute motion, tabling items.
- Attempted to restart the meeting without District Staff at one point beginning roll call. (42 min)
- Antonio Hernandez said he received a lot of emails and calls (44:20 min) – says people were very angry and called it surprising Rocha or Anello didn’t receive a single comment.
7 comments
Irony. Householder is Antioch City Clerk and she doesn’t even know Roberts Rules of Order. Watching her trying to run a meeting, google the rules and people wonder why Antioch has gone down hill.
One wonders how competently she performs her duties as city clerk considering how incompetent she is on the school board. Maybe the city council and city manager should be looking at that instead of worrying about providing an ATV “playground” and promoting the pot “industry” in Antioch.
Householder must be kicked out! She’s on some power trip! Good idea to re-read the Roberts Rules of Order but I wouldn’t use GOOGLE for that. Don’t give GOOGLE any more power than it already has. It might be more prudent to use other search engines which don’t track you down and sell your information to advertisers. I have not used GOOGLE for 15 years, but BING or DuckDuckGo, StartPage and others.
By golly! Ellie Householder DOES look like “Whistler’s Mother!” Great observation by someone!
“Use of Force?” What else does one do when some punk is trying to hurt other students or staff members? Invite him to high tea? This is totally ridiculous! The punk was given choices and he blew that off. So, the next thing is to USE SOME FORCE to stop him! Is that so difficult for people as brainless as this Householder woman to understand? How in the world are these people elected?
Look at this school board panel, its no wonder kids are getting more and more stupid.
A total none issue and waste of time. The President of the Board wants 60 days to try and figure out how she can twist this to make the security officers and police look bad so she can continue with her baseless agenda. Unfortunately use of force is never pretty, shocking to the lay person, and hard to do with an adult sized person who decides they do not want to cooperate or that they don’t want to be detained or arrested that day for assaulting staff. Let the President of the Board handle these violent situations. I guarantee she will change her tune as soon as she get punched in the face by someone like this (I’ve personally seen this with self righteous medical and psychiatric staff critical of police tactics) It’s not an easy job to safely restrain someone that doesn’t want to be restrained but everyone seems to be an expert on it. If no one was seriously hurt, including the suspect, it was done well. Find something else to hang you hat on.
Comments are closed.