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The San Ramon Valley Unified School District has secured a successor for the district’s outgoing superintendent, with the Board of Education announcing a familiar name as their pick for the position Friday.
CJ Cammack, current superintendent at the Fremont Unified School District, is set to take the reins at SRVUSD following the departure of current SRVUSD Superintendent John Malloy on July 1.
The move means a return to the district for Cammack, who previously served as assistant superintendent of human resources at SRVUSD. He left that position in 2015 to work as deputy superintendent of human resources at the Martinez Unified School District for one year before taking the reins as superintendent there starting in 2016. He later moved to the Fremont school district in 2020.
“I am thrilled to return to San Ramon Valley Unified School District,” Cammack said in an announcement from the district. “Through expanding existing relationships and building new ones, I am excited to engage with students, staff, families, and community members to continue the District’s work around the Learner Profile. I am deeply humbled and profoundly grateful for the opportunity to serve and lead this excellent district.”
The news comes following two special board meetings the previous weekend, in which the board had been scheduled to interview candidates for the superintendent position that came up for grabs following the announcement of Malloy’s departure in February.
“With the Board’s strong commitment to SRVUSD’s Strategic Directions and careful analysis of our community survey and partner group feedback, the decision to select Mr. Cammack as our next Superintendent was clear,” SRVUSD Board President Laura Bratt said in the district’s announcement. “His exceptional track record of making district-wide improvements that benefit all students, his expertise in community-building, and his reputation for strengthening the student learning experience makes him the best choice for our district.”
The terms of Cammack’s contract are not yet known, with the trustees set to finalize and vote on the contract and appointment at their next regular meeting on May 14.
Approval would make SRVUSD the first of the four Tri-Valley school districts with superintendent departures to fill the position. Sunol Glen, Livermore Valley and Pleasanton are at other stages of their respective recruitment processes.
Notice of Cammack’s hiring was provided directly to SRVUSD school parents as well, earlier today. What jumped out there to attentive parents was the first line presenting reasons for Cammack’s employment here: in Fremont Unified, he’s “been instrumental in in establishing wellness centers at all secondary schools and increasing the number of counselors at every school site.”
Turning schools into amateur psychotherapy clinics has been a teacher-union objective for at least 55 years.
Quoting from a 1990 article by my astute wife, Sharon: “In January 1969, the radical leadership of the giant NEA teacher union proclaimed [approvingly] to its [then 1.8 million] members in ‘Today’s Education’ [NEA’s newsletter back then] that ‘…the schools are becoming clinics, whose purpose is to provide individualized psychosocial treatment for the student.’ ”
Sharon, continuing: “…Brave New World, here we come! No wonder our schools have been engulfed by a ‘rising tide of mediocrity’ ” [referring to 1983’s federal ‘Nation at Risk’ report on schools].
Senator and former SFSU English professor and University president Sam Hayakawa had “addressed the problem in 1978, when he stated to the U.S. Senate that ‘An educational heresy has flourished, a heresy that rejects the idea of education as the acquisition of knowledge and skills…. The heresy of which I speak regards the fundamental task of education as therapy.’ ”
Sharon reviewed the relevant federal code which forbids submission to psychological examination, testing, and treatment without written parental consent. She also cited relevant California Education Code statutes, including a requirement for “the teaching of patriotism and morality” that is still reflected somewhat these days in Education Code Sections 233.5 and 52720.
She then returned to the “phony issue of ‘academic freedom’ in our schools,” observing that “Teachers and administrators in our local public schools are employees of the taxpaying public; they are our agents, acting in loco parentis, charged by us with the responsibility for properly educating our children — subject to the constraints we may impose.”
Sharon was correct back then, and her comments still fit today’s woeful school situation, with its demotion of the teaching and learning of beneficial knowledge and skills, in favor of DEI (in reality, that’s Division, Exclusion, and Indoctrination).
The distortion and displacement of the appropriate SRVUSD mission has been a substantial problem since 1990, when SRVEA was able to plant its own radical majority on the SRVUSD Board (thereby winning the California Teachers Association “Chapter in Politics” award).
Since then, the Board majority has operated essentially as a creature of, by, and for the militant SRVEA/CTA/NEA unions.
CTA made clear its own radically extremist priorities in its 1984, in “Guidelines for Academic Freedom in the Public Schools.” At page 32 of that booklet, CTA snarls “Who dares take on religion, free enterprise, patriotism, and motherhood? We do — and we must!”
It’s been a pleasure to know that Supt. John Malloy will soon depart the scene. He slandered the Cal High Stunt Team in the District-wide letter he titled “Cal High Racist Incident 5.23.22” ( https://www.srvexpositor.com/stunt-team-defamation ), and he presided over a deep dive of 2023 SRVUSD test scores ( https://www.betterschoolsnotmoretaxes.com/test-scores ), while trying to obscure the drops by comparing them to already poor 2022 scores and not the substantially higher 2015-2019 marks.
Meanwhile, with read-aloud LGBTQ grooming in kindergarten ranging to depraved pornography in high school libraries, with scandals involving SRVUSD employees (including the Moseby abuse case of fall, 2022 finally going to trial in June), with deception even in Measure E wording ( https://www.betterschoolsnotmoretaxes.com ), Malloy’s “Deep Learning” schtick is more a case of SRVUSD’s Deep Depravity, Deep Dereliction, and Deep Deceit.
Instead of countering the problems induced in kids today by toxic social media, it’s my belief as a one-time 20-year teacher and coach that SRVUSD programs and practices, ignoring the District’s own official policies, are making things worse.
It would be a great thing to see Mr. Cammack undertake a new direction. But given the still-SRVEA/CTA/NEA-controlled SRVUSD Board, that’s unlikely.
And now, on May 8, the Board is set to discuss $600 Million to $800 Million in new school-bonds costs (plus interest), atop the sneaky Measure E&F campaign — for which ballots are due the day before. Here’s to the readers who’ve had or will have the good sense to vote NO to both measures.
Keep up the good fight, Mike!