By Justin HAGER

From the outset, Tuesday night’s GUSD board of education meeting struck a celebratory tone with the school board recognizing the important role school administrators play in student success during GUSD’s Week of the School Administrator. Following that recognition more excitement brewed as nine National Merit Scholarship semifinalists were announced, including Abdullah Ahmed and Matthew Keshishian from Clark Magnet High, Miriam Awan, Ellena Kim, Nathan Kim, David Yoon Kim and Seon-Jae Yoon from Crescenta Valley High. National Merit Semifinalists compete for a share of 7,500 scholarships worth nearly $30 million with winners announced between April and July 2022.

Student representative Brandon Doronila also struck a celebratory tone, reporting on the return of homecoming events for GUSD high schools, including reports of an off-campus location for CVHS homecoming and the first gender-neutral homecoming court for Glendale High. Doronilla next turned to upcoming events on college readiness, including an event tonight (Oct. 14) called “Best Fit for Me;” a Nov. 10 event on mastering the UC personal insight questions; and on Dec. 7 a financial aid workshop. Students and parents can learn more by visiting www.gusd.net/collegecareer.

The public comment portion of the meeting continued to be filled with comments regarding critical race theory (CRT), a controversial collegiate field of study that is currently not part of the GUSD curriculum. Despite the absence of the curriculum, an active campaign of disinformation has led a small group of local residents to claim that GUSD’s anti-racism, anti-bias and inclusion curriculum is indeed CRT. An investigation of these claims found little merit to either the claim that GUSD’s current curriculum is CRT, or that GUSD’s current curriculum contains historically inaccurate or otherwise factually incorrect or controversial content.

Later in the meeting, supporters of the CVHS Athletic Field Improvement Project saw the project take another step forward as school board members approved contracts for CEQA Consulting and Architectural Services related to the project.

A previous article in the CV Weekly related to the project led to calls from local residents who are opposed to the project to have their voices heard. That story will be included in a future edition of the CV Weekly.