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Parents and community members gather in the auditorium at North High School on Tuesday evening to receive information about warning signs for illegal drug use.
Palmer Moland, who is charged with seven felony counts including the misappropriation of public funds, violating conflict of interest statutes, falsification of election documents and voter fraud, takes a seat during an arraignment hearing on Thursday afternoon, when he pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Contributing columnist Jose Gaspar is a news anchor/reporter for Telemundo Bakersfield and KGET. Email him at elcompa29@gmail.com. The views expressed here are his own.
Parents and community members gather in the auditorium at North High School on Tuesday evening to receive information about warning signs for illegal drug use.
Palmer Moland, who is charged with seven felony counts including the misappropriation of public funds, violating conflict of interest statutes, falsification of election documents and voter fraud, takes a seat during an arraignment hearing on Thursday afternoon, when he pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Two local school districts find themselves under public scrutiny.
Let's start with the Kern High School District, which recently gave a lesson to all other districts in how not to handle a crisis. After a recent community meeting at North High School on the dangers of fentanyl, parent Jennifer Essex was livid.
"It was a waste of time! They would not let us get a word in," said the frustrated parent. Essex said her 15-year-old son had to be rushed to the hospital from the North High campus after he hit a vape that was laced with fentanyl. Other parents told similar stories of their students being given Jolly Ranchers and Rice Krispies treats tainted with the powerful deadly opioid.
Though the meeting was announced as an informational session on how to recognize an overdose, parents had come expecting to hear answers from North High Principal Mark Balch, as well as from KHSD Superintendent Bryon Schaefer on what KHSD was doing to go after those distributing the deadly drug on campus.
Instead, the district gave them a slide show, complete with cartoon-like figures more appropriate for grade school students. Days prior to the meeting, Balch had sent out a telephone message to parents saying there had been no fentanyl-related overdoses at the school. That came not only as a shock, but as an insult to Sasha Owens, whose 15-year-old daughter was hospitalized after being given a laced Jolly Rancher on campus. She was sent home from the hospital with a diagnosis as opioid poisoning. Balch quickly reversed course the following day and finally admitted it publicly at the meeting.
"I don't want to send the message that fentanyl is not present in our schools. We know it is," said Balch.
"We're trying to work with you to address the opioid problem."
Strangely absent from the meeting however, was Schaefer. Why wasn't he there?
I sent Schaefer an email asking why Balch was left alone to face angry parents who weren't getting answers to their questions. I got an email response not from Schaefer, but from Erin Briscoe, the public information and communications manager for KHSD. No explanation was given why Schaefer himself did not answer my questions.
It's hard to say what resources and administrators were deployed to North High because no one was able to answer, or better said, willing to answer questions from parents about what the school was doing to go after anyone bringing fentanyl on campus. Most of the response from Briscoe rambled about its "educational presentations" that have been held at school sites. I also contacted Cynthia Brakeman, who is the president of KHSD Board of Trustees and also the elected representative of Area 1, which takes in North High. In an email, Brakeman said she was present at the meeting.
"Parents and community members are concerned and have fears about this lethal drug, and rightfully so. We will look at the events that transpired at North High and take the appropriate measures to make sure we are communicating with parents. We will make sure that our school sites have a plan of action should this happen again on North High's campus, or on another of our campuses." wrote Brakeman.
Note to KHSD: You could have avoided most of this mess had you been proactive and immediately acknowledged the situation at North High School, planned accordingly and sent in your big guns to the community meeting to hold an open, honest and transparent dialogue with parents. You may also want to rework that slide show.
Moving on to the Fairfax School District, its past school board president and current member Palmer Moland was arrested Sept. 27 and charged with seven felony counts. After monthslong investigations by several entities, the Kern County District Attorney's Office charged the 34-year-old with violating conflict-of-interest statutes, falsification of election documents, misappropriation of public funds and voter fraud while in office.
"I'm thrilled, but it's bittersweet," said Lisa Smith, a seventh-grade teacher with the Fairfax School District.
For the past few years, Smith and other staff members and parents in the district have been frustrated by what they've described as highly inappropriate conduct by Moland and two others on the school board. School board meetings often dissolved into shouting. Things came to a head last year with a scathing Kern County grand jury report, followed by an outside audit in April by a state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team that accused Moland of inappropriately pushing the district to hire a law firm to stop the release of a personally damaging investigative report.
"It's taken years, but I'm really thrilled that what the people have been saying has been validated," said Smith. "It's been a hard, long process, but it's not affected the teaching or school environment at our district," she said. "That's to the credit of very dedicated teachers and parents."
In court, Moland pleaded not guilty to all charges and given his lack of a criminal record the judge released Moland on his own recognizance.
He remains a school board member, but if he is convicted of a felony, then he is out. But it might not take that long. Moland is up for re-election Nov. 8.
Contributing columnist Jose Gaspar is a news anchor/reporter for Telemundo Bakersfield and KGET. Email him at elcompa29@gmail.com. The views expressed here are his own.
Positive Cases Among Kern Residents: 289,862
Recovered and Presumed Recovered Residents: 283,906
Percentage of all cases that are unvaccinated: 72.43
Percentage of all hospitalizations that are unvaccinated: 83.19
Source: Kern County Public Health Services Department
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