Antioch School Board Opts Not to Censure Antonio Hernandez

On Wednesday, the Antioch Unified School District Board of Trustees voted not to censure its board president and essentially confirmed its okay to break board policy, the law and bully.

The move comes as Trustee Mary Rocha requested the item during its May 22 meeting where she read a statement of why he should be censured, and even be removed as Board President. This was in response to Hernandez actions in his response to “bully boss” media stories and behavior towards Superintendent Stephanie Anello.

According to the 7-page Resolution within the agenda, it alleges that Hernandez had a dozen violations of board policy and bylaws, the law, and committed a Brown Act violation along with an open meeting law.

Although the Board voted 4-1 against a censure, no one disputed the accusations within the 7-page resolution, outlining the violations.

Instead, Dr. Jag Lathan argued the board policy and the law should not be followed because of systematic racism—however, she provided no examples or evidence within board policy to make her statement true nor offered any suggestions of what bylaws and laws needed to be changed.

Hernandez, who took a bizarre twist of facts on what occurred during his impromptu board meeting and turned it into a campaign stump speech, took it further during his commentary by sharing he believed the process was meant to keep the community as status quo and they could no longer stand for it. He offered no examples or details of what needed to be changed.

Board Recap:

After hearing from the public, who spoke out against the ensure, the Board held its discussion.

“This is a difficult situation,” said Clyde Lewis. “But there are rules that govern how information is shared and I am a process guy and anyone who knows me knows I am a process guy.”

Rocha said she brought this up and was not an easy thing to do because she admired Hernandez.

“But we do have rules, policies that we follow and this is the issue I am dealing with,” said Rocha saying it took her a while to bring it up because she knew what the outcome would be. She then read the resolution noting several violations. “I admire who he is, I admire what he is trying to do, but we have rules and policies we have to follow. If we don’t, then we have chaos.”

Trustee Gary Hack stated there was only one word, “process”.

“It is an important word, we have books, rules and things to go by. This whole situation went off the rail because the process was not…” Hack was then interrupted by the audience. “All I am trying to say there is different ways to look at issues, some are right, some are wrong, my concern initially, I am not saying where I stand on this, I am saying the process is process is important and the initial process was violated and ignored. And its gone on.”

The audience then continued to interject in which Hernandez asked if Hack was finish.

“I have no choice, the audience will not let me go on,” said Hack.

Trustee Jag Lathan said she was disappointed.

“While process is huge for me as well, and also understand that process sometimes means you are reenacting systems of oppression and white supremacy so I am not sure which process you are referring to Trustee Rocha. But it feels like from what our duties are as elected, President Hernandez did the same exact thing that needed to happen which was be public about public issues,” stated Lathan. “As elected, we are not to do business in private and behind closed doors. Additionally, emails are public information in our position. I appreciate the work you’ve done, President Hernandez.”

She continued.

“I know we’re electeds, but we were elected to do the work of the people. When you think of about process, I want us to think about being consistent as well if you are saying this is about process. We tend to follow processes that the majority wants and when you don’t want to follow other processes you don’t.”

She further continued talking about bullying.

“It all started with our employees sharing they were bullied. That is how it started and now we’re ending with saying you have to be silent,” Lathan explained. “But when an investigating says it was a prank, and we know what we saw with our eyes and know what we heard with our ears because our employees told us and we’re still moving on like nothing happened, that’s unacceptable. It is our job to tell the truth, to make sure we support our employees and students and listen to the community. I’m sorry this is happening.”

Hernandez questioned who wrote the Resolution.

Rocha responded she had help writing the Resolution and confirmed it did not cost the District any money.

“This is absolutely so far beyond me, this is about the direction of our district, what we want for our students and our community. And, what we want for our employees,” stated Hernandez. “We also know this is absolutely in malice and sloppy, quite frankly.”

He continued, going through the Resolution pointing out flaws.

“We heard the word process, I’m not a process person. I’m a people person,” said Hernandez.. “We created processes to protect people not people to protect processes. And that’s what brings this back to what this is all about. This is about changing those processes and changing what is failing our community, failing our employees and failing our students. This is a process meant to keep us exactly the way we are and if we allow this to happen then its implementing the same status quo and we cannot stand for that.”

At that point, members of the audience began chanting “no justice no peace” and “Mary Rocha has got to go”.

Hernandez then made the motion to table the resolution indefinitely.

“I call for the motion,” Rocha said who made a parliamentary procedure which was a vote to take the vote on the resolution and stop further discussion.

Rocha voted “yes” while Hernandez and Lathan voted “no”. Meanwhile, Hack and Lewis “abstained” resulting in the motion failing.

Hernandez then motioned for the item to be tabled indefinitely. That motion was approved in a 4-1 vote with Rocha dissenting.

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