Senate Bill 640<\/a>, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in October. The law provides direct, automatic admission to the CSU system to California high school graduates who meet the minimum requirements.<\/p>\nBut because CSULB does not have available capacity, it will be exempt from the law, along with five other CSU campuses, a spokesperson for the Chancellor\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n
As school board President Diana Craighead turned to the resolution on the agenda, she announced that board members had received a letter from CSULB President Andrew Jones. Yet audience members were left guessing at the letter\u2019s contents until Board Member Maria Isabel L\u00f3pez spoke.<\/p>\n
Jones \u201chas concerns that the resolution comes without prior consultation with CSULB,\u201d L\u00f3pez said. She recommended a pause on voting \u201cbecause the letter he did send is very clear that he would like to discuss it before we move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez began reading the letter aloud, but before she could finish the first line, Craighead objected, saying the author of the letter may not have intended for it to be shared publicly.<\/p>\n
The letter, which CSULB later shared with the Long Beach Post, asked the school board to defer action in order to provide a chance to further discuss the issues at the heart of the resolution: \u201cthe intent and scope of SB640; the impacts relative to the existing Promise, and how the CSU can legally implement the bill systemwide,\u201d Jones wrote.<\/p>\n
He added that he was concerned that the resolution could have unintended consequences on a current program \u2014 Promise to the Beach \u2014 which CSULB is already piloting for the district\u2019s high school seniors who have completed A-G requirements but don\u2019t meet the higher standard for admission.<\/p>\n
L\u00f3pez said these concerns were important to share publicly. \u201cSince we hold public office, isn\u2019t this public?\u201d L\u00f3pez asked the district\u2019s general counsel, Jeffrey Riel, who told her: \u201cThere\u2019s no legal restriction from reading the contents of that letter.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, said Riel was \u201cexactly correct\u201d in this assessment. \u201cThey\u2019re not required to read it out loud into the record,\u201d Loy said, \u201cbut there\u2019s no reason that they can\u2019t.\u201d Further, the Brown Act, a California law governing local government bodies, including school boards, requires that the letter be made available to any member of the public who requests it.<\/p>\n
Yet Craighead voiced her opinion against the letter\u2019s disclosure; \u201cIt sets a dangerous precedent,\u201d she said. \u201cIt means that whatever letter we receive can be read in public.\u201d The board did not share the contents at the meeting and took no action on the resolution.<\/p>\n
Reasonable people can disagree about whether or not it is fair to selectively read some letters, Loy said. \u201cBut as a matter of law,\u201d he said, reading one letter out loud \u201cdoes not mandate that they read every letter out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Long Beach Unified School District board of trustees butted heads on Wednesday over whether to publicly share…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-48516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}