Teachers Support Wichowski
We are always appreciative of the lengths to which The Independent goes in ensuring local voters have information that will be helpful when casting their ballots. This includes extensive reporting long before Election Day, and endorsements that we believe are thoughtfully made, even when we don’t always agree with them.
This year, however, we’re quite surprised to see an endorsement of Bill Banning for SBUSD’s Area 3 when the Santa Barbara Teachers Association has so enthusiastically endorsed Chris Wichowski. We are hoping The Indy has a policy that makes it OK to say “oops! we were wrong!” when it comes to your endorsements, because this time you really got it wrong.
Reporters from your publication know what a mess our district is thanks in part to Bill Banning. He has either perpetuated problems that existed before him, or added new problems to the ever-increasing issues within the district.
When it comes to replying to community members who have emailed him about their concerns, he either doesn’t reply or replies with a generic form letter. At one of the final board meetings last school year, he lectured teachers most condescendingly about not staying for the whole board meeting…. never once thinking that perhaps we left the meeting to go home to see our families and then to watch the rest of the meeting on YouTube after our kids were in bed. Oh, yes–we were definitely paying attention to those meetings, and we were unimpressed, Bill.
Bill Banning’s ideas of what good leadership looks like clearly did not align with SBTA’s ideas, especially after he was such a vocal advocate for keeping teacher pay at unlivable levels. Our students in Santa Barbara Unified deserve leaders who are going to ask critical questions and support their education through new and creative ideas. It’s time for fresh eyes on our old, tired problems, and Chris Wichowski is clearly ready to be that new perspective. Chris is a former Special Education teacher with young children who will soon be in SB Unified schools.
This is a big misstep for The Independent. It feels like quite a slap in the face for you to be endorsing a man who was so adversarial to our educators as they spent all last year trying to protect our community by stopping the mass exodus of people who genuinely care and are exceptional at their jobs. As teachers, we need leadership that’s going to support us and work with us, the way we support and care for our students every day.
Talked to any teachers lately about how things are going at SBUSD? If you had, you wouldn’t be endorsing Bill Banning. Thank you for at least making the right call in endorsing Celeste Kafri for Area 5. We know she’s ready to roll up her sleeves and work toward a better future for our district.