A Mom’s Open Letter in Response to Mark McLaughlin, CVUSD Superintendent

Dear Mr. McLaughlin:

Thank you for your newest campaign speech, shared via CVUSD email. Please note, apart from the tiny percentage of parents who are convinced their child was born in the wrong body, the remaining 16,000+ parents do not care that you tell us to “stop.” You must have forgotten: YOU. WORK. FOR. US.

We are the law-abiding parents of this student body, and we will NOT stop protecting our children from your psychotic agenda, and when I say “you,” this includes all five school board members who have created this mayhem in our community. You are all responsible for pushing this trash into our schools.

We will NOT stop as you attempt to sexualize our children.

We will NOT stop as you weaponize our children against their parents; and

We will NOT stop as you attempt to teach our children that their parents’ beliefs are bigoted. This is FALSE.

Your playbook attempts to destroy the family structure by sexually corrupting our children and by turning them against their parents. You six are like Mao’s “Red Guards” in the Cultural Revolution, with a mission to destroy the country’s traditional values, culture, and customs. This is your religion, and it looks like neo-Marxism.

There are many mistruths and manipulated facts in your campaign letter. I will highlight the obvious ones:

You wrote, “There has been on-going social media warfare and print disinformation campaigns against the Conejo Valley Unified School District, our schools, our employees and our students.” But this justifiable pushback by parents is not “warfare.” Instead, it’s disagreement with your perverted curriculum. Unless you live under a rock, you will notice that this phenomenon is taking place throughout the country. Could the problem possibly be you? Additionally, this pushback is not targeted toward the “schools” or the “students.” This is a false statement, and I would ask your defamation lawyers about this.

You wrote, “This has taken place across many platforms, with videos, printed flyers and more. This type of behavior is harmful, perpetuates false information, and does absolutely nothing to help us best serve all students in the CVUSD.” I say, wrong, wrong and wrong. Sharing videos, flyers and more is very helpful – it’s called free speech. It is not “harmful” to share the truth with fellow parents, and exposing the truth absolutely does serve our children, our students, because we love them. They belong to us, not to you.

You wrote, “Even more so, with events from the last five days, this campaign to harm public education in our community … ” It’s completely false to claim there is a “campaign to harm public education.” This is defamatory toward parents.

You said, “Our District’s and schools’ top priority is our students.” This is inaccurate because you combat their parents, are not transparent, and ignore requests made by the majority of parents who have their children’s best interests in mind. If the students were your “top priority,” you would not need to hide your transgender questionnaires or your push for homosexual sex instruction.

You wrote, “There are individuals who spend time and much effort to disparage the CVUSD” — or do we instead disparage the actions of you and your school board members? You continued, “They seek to divide our community” — an amazing statement from the one who is using any tactic to achieve his aims. You lamented the loss of “what was once lively discourse,” which you seem to interpret as agreement with your views. Note that the board consistently votes 5-0.

You wrote, “Board of Education meetings during public comments and agendized topics has escalated to a concerted and organized effort to create chaos and further narratives that are unfounded and simply have nothing to do with current action items nor Board duties and business.” You don’t seem to realize that most parents speak on their own without any coordination whatsoever. Further, public comments have everything to do with board duties and business — or the dereliction of these duties. “The sensationalizing of rumors and months-old reported incidents must stop,” you declared. Sir, do not tell parents what to do. You work for us. “Months-old reported incidents” are still relevant, though you don’t like these facts reported. You claim these “narratives are being wrongly used to politicize incidents involving our students.” They are not being “wrongly used”; they are being justly used to call out outrageous policies implemented by you and your school board members. You call them “Real children who attend our schools, who play with friends on our playgrounds, and who have families living in our community.” Correct. These are our children, not your children. Our children, whom we love and protect from your perversion and debauchery.

You conclude, “The CVUSD and its team of educational leaders will always stand by our students, all of them.” Except that is for students whose parents don’t want gender dysphoria being promoted in their classrooms.

You end, “We hope the community will continue to stand with us and support us in this important effort too.” Someone obviously needs to tell you that the majority of this community does not stand by you. Thank you for this opportunity to respond.

Sophia Venezia