Editor,
I must say, I’m incredibly grateful to Alvin Lui for moving all the way from California to save our beloved community from the evils of diversity initiatives. Scratch that — I meant social emotional learning. No, hold on, it was objectionable library books. Or falling test scores? Sorry, I can’t keep up.
Mr. Lui, you may be trying to sell Carmel the Golden Gate Bridge, but we’re not buying. It’s ironic how he accuses the CCS diversity, equity and inclusion officer of looking for problems rather than solving them when that’s exactly what Unify Carmel has sought to do from the beginning. Why, you ask? Well, Mr. Lui happened to say the quiet part out loud in his interview: He was convinced that “‘operatives’ had been working behind the scenes for a few years to bring left-wing ideology to Carmel” because local citizens had the audacity to organize around issues of racial justice. Interesting coincidence there. The only operative I’m aware of in this town is Mr. Lui himself, as he is publicly affiliated with national right-wing organizations, including Heritage Action.
Mr. Lui — and Unify Carmel — are nothing more than chaos agents. Their messaging makes no sense because it’s not really about our students’ well-being or the quality of our schools. It all comes down to one thing: political power. They’re losing it, they want it back, and our school system will be the casualty.
To the actual concerned parents of CCS students who are reading this: We come from all different races, ethnicities, religions — and, yes, political ideologies. We may not see eye-to-eye on everything, but I’ll bet we can agree that our public schools matter to our families. Besides providing a top-notch education, they serve as places of safety and community for our kids. We can’t afford to lose our excellent teachers and staff, but we will if we allow them to be bullied and abused. There’s always room for disagreement and for raising concerns through the proper channels, but as an institution, our schools need your support.
Erin Heilbrunn Vahrenkamp, Carmel
