Tell Los Gatos & Saratoga to Reject Critical Race Theory

We are in a Moral Crisis right here in Los Gatos, home to Netflix, and Saratoga, home to Roku, as well as surrounding towns in Silicon Valley, such as Cupertino, home to Apple Computer. Our government is pushing Critical Race Theory throughout our California schools, towns, cities, museums, chambers of commerce, and more.

A small group of us have been speaking out against CRT, BLM, and LGBTQ at the LGSUHSD school board and town council meetings most of 2021. We are being ignored and censured. The media, such as the Spotlight and KPIX, and California elected officials are calling us bigots, racists, and terrorists. Los Gatos Mayor Sayoc and VM Rennie took away our free speech by stopping in-person meetings and preventing us from protesting within 300 feet of a residence, specifically their home offices. Anna Eshoo, gay Evan Low, and other elected officials spoke out against us for speaking out against the racist ideology being shoved down our throats in Los Gatos and Saratoga. Biblical times, indeed!
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An Open Letter to the Los Gatos-Saratoga Community and Schools:

We are a group of dedicated and concerned Los Gatos and Saratoga parents and community members who deeply care for our schools and our communities of Los Gatos and Saratoga, as well as all surrounding areas. We believe that the school and community leadership have adopted a divisive ideology that is harming rather than helping our children and families.

We appreciate that Los Gatos and Saratoga seek to improve our communities as our country reckons with the legacy of racism. We are strongly committed to opposing racism and any policy that treats groups differently based on the color of their skin or other inherited or immutable traits. We share the school’s and town council’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and equality; however, equity is a Marxist term with which we disagree. As Los Gatos-Saratoga community members and American citizens, we also have a responsibility to uphold and protect the liberal ideals that have made this country a beacon to millions of people everywhere.

As parents and community members, we are disturbed to learn that Los Gatos and Saratoga school faculty and administrators and School Board members, Theresa Bond, Cynthia Chang, David Guidry, Peter Hertan, Katherine Tseng, as well asLos Gatos Town Chamber Executive Catherine Somers, Los Gatos Council Members, Sayoc, Rennie, Ristow, Badame and Hudes, and Saratoga council members, Tina Walia, Kookie Fitzsimmons, Mary-Lynne Bernald, Rishi Kumar, Yan Zhao, have been attending seminars, workshops, and training sessions that promote and emphasize Critical Race Theory. Please see https://www.health-connected.org/ and https://epocheducation.com/ and https://cassybayarea.org/staff/ all of which promote CRT, LGBTQ and BLM.

Los Gatos Town Manager, Laurel Privetti, and Los Gatos Council Member, Marico Sayoc, proudly head up CASSY, an organization which promotes LGBTQ, Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory. CASSY uses these ideologies to give free mental health services to our school children. These companies are contracted with our Los Gatos and Saratoga schools and community. As a result of these efforts, the illiberal ideology of Critical Theory now pervades our schools, classrooms, and community’s museums, such as NUMU, library, and programs, such as Chamber of Commerce Catherine Somer’s Listen Learn Change Grow program that we see hanging from the poles throughout Los Gatos. This ideology assumes that America was founded on white supremacy and asserts that racism is at the heart of every disparity in society and our schools. This ideology requires people to see themselves, not as individuals, but as representatives of a group of oppressors or oppressed, depending on the color of their skin.

At Los Gatos and Saratoga schools, teachers are bringing this ideology into the classroom at every level of our school. They are teaching lessons that make our children define their identity based on the color of their skin. They are presenting a skewed version of history, which omits historical facts in support of an ideological agenda. As parents, we encourage the schools to teach the complicated truth about America, including its flaws and failures, but we also encourage the school to include the reality of America’s success and progress on issues of race and equality. By omitting the progress of racial equality, teachers are leading children toward ignorance and activism in the place of critical thinking and authentic learning. California is even doing away with Ds and Fs as grades for fear of hurting someone’s feelings if they don’t do as well as others. We are moving toward a meritless society and need to put on the brakes quickly.

All of our children are unique individuals who have built healthy relationships within our Los Gatos and Saratoga schools and community. These relationships are based on trust, respect, laughter, kindness, listening, sharing, arguing, and making amends. Our children aren’t born caring about the color of each other’s skin; they don’t care about the struggles of communicating with students for whom English is not their first language; they don’t care about each other’s different backgrounds. Sadly, the school’s ideology is teaching our students to focus less on what they instinctively know matters in a relationship and more on ideological grievances. We should take a lesson from our children in how human beings can transcend differences through shared experiences, values, and mutual understanding.

We have conveyed our concerns to school administrators and town council, and we are grateful for free speech, we are being ignored. We are disappointed that the schools and town continue to follow a trajectory toward illiberalism that is harming our children and our community.

As Los Gatos and Saratoga parents and community members, we urge the schools and town council to reject illiberal and divisive ideologies. We urge the schools and town council instead to focus our children and community members on the content of our character and not the color of our skin. We urge the schools and town council to support pro-human, shared liberal values such as compassion, fairness, understanding, humanity, and the freedom to disagree without fear of censure or shame.

There are many resources that can help build bridges and create a positive school culture, including the programs created by the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), including pro-human curriculum, diversity training, high school clubs and more.

We write this letter in the hopes of empowering parents, faculty, administrators, board members and town council members to find positive and constructive ways to approach our differences as we move forward as a unified community.

Sincerely,

Lynley Kerr Hogan
Los Gatos Resident