BUSD moves board meetings to third Wednesday of the month

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

For calendar year 2022, most Bonsall Unified School District board meetings will be held on the third Wednesday of the month.

A 5-0 BUSD board vote Dec. 15 approved the change of the normal meeting date from the second Wednesday to the third Wednesday. The meetings could be moved due to holidays, school events, or other reasons; the school board normally holds two meetings in June to allow for the adoption of the fiscal year budget, and special meetings may also be called when warranted.

“We just looked at what worked best for our schedule,” said BUSD Superintendent Joseph Clevenger.

Eric Ortega is on the BUSD board. He is also involved with the Pala Tribal Council, whose meetings are on the second Wednesday of the month. The school board meetings on the second Wednesday of the month were thus an issue for him. “That didn’t fit into my schedule because of the tribal council meetings, which made me miss tribal council meetings,” Ortega said. “It’s a rather large important meeting for us.”

Other members of the Pala tribe have children who are BUSD students. “It does help any tribal member now,” Ortega said.

Ortega noted that in the past, tribal members have attended the school board meetings but had to leave early to return to Pala for the tribal council meetings. “We all feel they’re both very important,” Ortega said.

With the change of dates for BUSD board meetings, those tribal members no longer have to choose between the two meetings. “This is trying to make sure that the maximum number of people have access to the meetings where decisions are made about their students’ learning,” Clevenger said.

The conflict between the tribal council meetings and the school board meetings is recent. “Historically the meetings were held on Thursday,” Ortega said.

Larissa Anderson was elected to the Bonsall school board in November 2018. Her son was a high school wrestler at the time and, because high school wrestling meets are usually held on Thursdays, she requested that the meetings be moved to Wednesdays so that she could see her son’s matches. At the December 2019 organizational meeting, the board meetings were moved to the second Wednesday of the month, which has been the normal case since January 2019.

Ortega was elected to the board in November 2020. He wrestled for Fallbrook High School before graduating in 1982 and noted that the wrestling matches were on Thursdays when he was a competitor.

The rest of the board deemed the tribal council meetings important enough to change the date of the school board meetings. “All I did was ask them,” Ortega said.

“None of them had any problem with changing the date,” Ortega said. “It is nice that they accommodate.”