Visalia Unified School District board members faced a packed house on Tuesday, March 10, as multiple major issues drew in different segments of the community to discuss and debate the proposed layoffs of school employees and a photo featuring Redwood students spelling out a homophobic slur on campus.
Before the meeting started, protesters from two groups camped outside the Visalia Unified headquarters: a group supporting the LGBTQ community in Visalia and another supporting the California School Employees Association (CSEA.) The CSEA union represents classified staff – employees such as custodians, drivers, and paraeducators – at Visalia Unified.
Community turnout filled the district’s boardroom and sent members of the community into an overflow room as the meeting began at 5:30PM.
Speakers from the public – including current and former students – spoke out to implore the Visalia Unified board to improve the student climate at its schools. School employees alongside union representatives from other schools and districts pleaded with the board to avoid laying off staff.
During board member comments, all board members spoke to acknowledge the Redwood controversy. Superintendent Kirk Shrum also dedicated time to acknowledge those wanting to see action from the district.
“I want to reaffirm that hate speech at any time will not be tolerated at VUSD, and I want to thank Principal Gridiron and his team who, along with district support, quickly addressed the situation,” he said. “To our LGBTQ students and adults, I want to affirm that you are valued members of our school community.”
He said that Visalia Unified leadership is continuing to work with the community to make Visalia’s schools safer.
Members of the community from The Source LGBT+ Center, a Visalia-based nonprofit serving as a resource for the LGBT+ community in the Central Valley, asked Shrum and the board to perform an audit of educators’ LGBT+ cultural competency training and support systems for LGBTQ+ students.
They also asked for an audit of the school’s compliance with the California FAIR Act, which requires that social studies instruction includes the roles of, and contributions by, LGBTQ+ Americans.
During the meeting, all board members also specifically noted the tough decisions to be made regarding layoffs.
Ultimately, the board voted 5-2, with Kenneth DeJonge and Randy Villegas voting no, to approve plans to eliminate 10 full-time-equivalent counselor positions, three full-time-equivalent social science teacher positions, and 86 full-time-equivalent classified positions, including paraprofessionals, custodians, warehouse workers, and behavior intervention technicians.
Redwood photo – and the history of Visalia Unified
Visalia made national headlines in early February when a group of Redwood High School students, including some in student leadership, used shirts meant for a senior class photo spelling out “CLASS OF 2026 ALWAYS LEGIT” to spell out an entirely different phrase, “2 FAG6OTS” – using a six as the second G in the homophobic slur.
Visalia Unified officials responded, with Superintendent Kirk Shrum stating on February 13 that “appropriate disciplinary action has been taken in accordance with District policy,” and stating later on February 17 that the school district was meeting with students to “address hate speech, civility, and the responsibility that comes with being a member of our Visalia schools and community.”
On February 26, Visalia Unified leadership held a closed-door meeting with members of the LGBTQ+ community and faith leaders as outrage over the photo continued to build, according to ABC30.
The Redwood incident isn’t the first time that Visalia Unified has made news for homophobia: the ACLU of Northern California sued the district in 2001 on behalf of George Loomis, a student who said he was harassed by both students and teachers at Golden West High School. The ACLU claimed the school’s approach to gay students was to get them off campuses entirely by placing them in “inappropriate special education programs.”
More recently, at the same time that student protestors placed pro-Black Lives Matter signs at El Diamante in the summer of 2020, students began a briefly-lived #DearVUSD movement – including a dedicated Instagram account sharing anonymous submissions – that called out the district for a perceived failure to protect vulnerable students.
Michael Anne de Campos, a Redwood student at the time, spoke to the board in 2020 to share concerns about the culture on the Redwood campus:
“It’s horrible to be a student who’s in the LGBTQ community. I’ve been bullied for years, and I mean — I have it better than most, and I still had it rough,” she said at the time. “And you shouldn’t have to go to the administration and beg them to listen to your sexual assault story. I have over 15 girls who have come to me directly with how they went to the administration with their sexual assault and they just disregarded it — they never received justice, and that is disgusting.”
“What a lot of them want to see, they don’t want justice now. They want to know that you guys are going to establish a protocol so that it doesn’t happen again,” she said later in the meeting. “We already have the trauma. We’re here to make sure no one else has to go through what we went through.”
Community speaks out about photo
Approximately 20 public comments related to the Redwood photo were in support of the district taking action to ensure students on Visalia’s school campuses feel safe and supported.
Jake Ramos, a Visalia student, said they had been “bullied for as long as [they] can remember for being queer.”
“I’ve been bullied by actual teachers. People on the internet joke that we should bring back bullying, but it’s never left, because that’s what this is,” Ramos said. “It starts with a word and it ends with kids killing themselves. I don’t go to Redwood, but this affects me too, because I know exactly how these students feel.”
Remy Gomez, a sixth grader at Royal Oaks Elementary, spoke to say that what happened at Redwood was disappointing to her as a potential future student.
“I was not sure if I wanted to go anymore. I play softball competitively and I know Redwood has a great team, and I’m also in orchestra, and I was looking forward to playing,” she said. “The students who participated in this need to be held responsible for that.”
June Rodriguez, who said she was previously a student at Redwood, said that her experience “made the situation not even a little bit surprising.”
“Many of the students in this photo, I recognize,” she said – stating that she had similar abuse directed at her during her time at Redwood, culminating in her transferring to Golden West to escape homophobic abuse.
Jose Ruiz-Garcia, the Community Programs Manager at The Source LGBT+ Center, said that the Redwood incident was not an isolated experience.
“All of the youth currently in my programs have expressed having experienced bullying and harassment because of their sexuality or gender identity,” he said.
Sabrina Norton, a Visalia resident, spoke to ask the superintendent and the board for more clarity on the district’s next steps.
“There were things you could confirm without identifying a single student that participated that day,” Norton said, “and it would have gone a long way in building a bridge between those of us here tonight and the thousands of people out there saying, ’Who cares? Let kids be kids.’”
Board members respond
All of the board members responded to the Redwood incident and the public’s frustration.
“I hope all of us realize this is, and it was, and I pray will continue to be, what we look in education as a teachable moment – where all of us learn, and all of us move on,” Paul Belt said.
Joy Naylor said she appreciated the community coming out and speaking.
“Everyone should feel safe – all students,” Joy Naylor said. “If that means we need to kind of look within ourselves and find out how we fix this – it’s not about punishments, it’s about educating. We’re in the business of educating students, and that’s what our focus needs to be.”
Walta Gamoian echoed her remarks.
“I do want to thank the people that came out tonight. I want this place to be a place where you can express your opinions, views, and concerns,” she said. “I would like to give kudos to Dr. Gridiron at Redwood High School. He has done a great job doing restorative justice, getting kids together, understanding that respect and belonging are really important, and that each of those kids has a role in that.”
Kenneth DeJonge said that he ran for his board seat to support the community and its children – and that he only knew the same information that the general public did.
“I’m also here to support individuals that feel singled out, that feel that they don’t belong,” DeJonge said. “That’s not something that I believe in as a community member – a lot of that comes from a Christian perspective, at least my Christian perspective. That, uh, all are welcome and all deserve love.”
“There’s lots of things that trouble me, you know, as far as the Redwood incident. I know as much as the public, unfortunately. I don’t think that’s a position I should be in as a board member, and that’s something that I’ll speak to our superintendent about,” he added.
Jacqueline Gaebe and Randy Villegas also spoke to support students experiencing bullying, and they endorsed the request by The Source LGBT+ Center to audit the district’s practices.
“While we can’t control what happens outside the school, under no circumstances should any student feel that this would be acceptable on one of our campuses,” Gaebe said. “Our school climates do matter, and our students do deserve better – so thank you to the community that showed up.”
“No child should show up to their place of learning and be confronted with hate at them – directed at them just for being who they are,” Villegas said. “We must fight for the dignity, and the safety, of all of our LGBTQ students, all of our staff, and our community here in Visalia and beyond.”
Two board members push back on layoffs
While all of the board members showed a united front to support students experiencing bullying, the board split on a 5-2 basis regarding the subject of employee position reductions.
Mena Rocha, a labor relations representative for the Visalia chapter of CSEA, spoke to the Valley Voice before the meeting.
“This is the fifth consecutive year of laying off classified staff members,” she said.
The work that’s eliminated simply falls on other employees, Rocha said, spreading those spared from layoffs even thinner.
“If you talk to the custodians, they’re very honest – they’re like, they can’t keep up with the workload that they have. They work in teams. Can they effectively clean three schools in one night?” Mena said. “One of our members, with 29 years spent, he’s being laid off from taking care of the stadium. Who is that going to fall on?”
Katie Cain spoke as the CSEA chapter president for College of the Sequoias, as a Visalian, and as someone who attended Visalia Unified schools “from kindergarten through graduation.”
“For the last three years, the district has consistently underprojected their revenue anywhere from $43m to $247m. In those same years, the district has consistently laid off or reassigned classified staff, and the significance of that fact is the value of that discrepancy each year was enough to pay all the annual salaries of your entire classified staff body five times over, at minimum,” she said. “Not just the laid off people.”
As staff were laid off, administrators were added, she claimed.
“How many of those administrators were laid off? How many of them took a pay cut? Because we know they aren’t worried about paying their bills like the classified staff are,” she said.
Shrum addressed comments by staff and CSEA supporters when the board discussed the layoff proposals.
“We recognize that staffing adjustments cause concern and I want to speak directly to the heart of the matter, our commitment to our workforce and the stability of our schools,” Shrum said.
In March 2025, though positions were eliminated, Shrum said the district managed to avoid any employee terminations through shifting impacted employees to other positions.
“At this point today, all but 14 of the impacted classified employees have been assigned to a position for the 26-27 school year,” he said. “And we will continue to work with our labor partners, CSEA chapter leadership, during the coming months to identify positions for as many of these employees as possible.”
“We are encouraged by the career opportunities reflected in the overall increase of 143.1 FTE during the past two years,” he added.
Villegas spoke to support the classified employees’ concerns.
“In the past, we have approved a waiver for not spending 55% on classroom salaries, and so, as we look towards these layoffs, I’m perplexed as to how we’re both failing to meet the required amount of spending per state law on classroom salaries, while at the same time proposing layoffs,” he said.
DeJonge, who said upfront that he was a classified employee at another district in Terra Bella, asked who would do the work that the eliminated positions covered.
“Is there no other place that we could figure out a way to shore up for staff? I’ve said this over and over again – things don’t teach kids, it’s people. We all have that story about the wonderful teacher or groundsworker who made a difference in our lives being a kid at school,” DeJonge said, “but how do we do that if we keep cutting our people?”
Paul Belt spoke to defend the proposal. He called the cuts difficult, but necessary, and said that cuts were being made across the board – each department was asked to cut “five percent, straight across.”
“No business can continue to just spend more money than they’re taking in. They will go out of business. And the numbers have been very, very clear. I mean, these numbers are staggering – millions and millions,” he said.
“It’s not them against us – people, if we don’t save money, if we don’t make good decisions, we’ll all lose our jobs – that’s the reality,” Belt said. “As difficult as it is, I know we have to make wise cuts, and it’s being shared all the way across the board. And it’s not limited to just classified employees.”
Gamoian began to speak before moving to support the classified employee layoff proposal.
“This was worked out with our district and the bargaining team. They talked about it, they worked hard on it. That – we’re going to move forward – well, okay, I’m not going to argue with you. I’ll just make the motion,” she said, before making her motion.
Before voting to support a separate motion that eliminated some custodial and social science teacher positions, Gamoian encouraged her fellow board members to reach out to state lawmakers, as she does.
“We have to advocate at the state level – I mean, they’re messing with Prop 98 [which guarantees a minimum amount of funding for schools in California] again. So, there’s Legislative Action Week – get on and sign up, and be with me at these things, and talk to our representatives. So, I invite you to do that, and check your email where those are,” she said.
Speaking before the vote, Naylor said that the decisions were difficult, but necessary.
“We only have so many resources, and we can’t just say, we’re gonna throw it out there, and you know what, if we sink, we sink,” Naylor said. “I work at the sheriff’s office, and you know what, we have to cut, and we have to make sure that our accounts payable – that we can meet our budget, and we can meet our payroll. And I do that every day.”
“Sometimes, they’re hard decisions, and they hurt, but you gotta balance the budget – that’s the bottom line.”