Thirteen months ago, Manteca Unified trustees made a decision that reaffirmed the primary mission of the school district.

No, it wasn’t adoption of a new mission statement. Rather it was making sure schools exist — first and foremost — to educate students in the basics.

The decision they made did, however, assure the wouldn’t waiver from their adopted mission statement, “Every student works to achieve grade level standards, feels safe and is supported to realize individual success.”

What the board did was resist the temptation to wade into politics.

Even in times when anyone who disagrees with someone else isn’t automatically branded as being toxic and therefore need to be ridiculed and hammered into submission, politics are as easy to navigate as quick sand.

The issue in question was the Jan. 6 attack on the national capitol.

Trustee Marisella Guerrero of Lathrop wanted the board to weigh in officially condemning the act that clearly went beyond a peaceful protest and certainly had treasonous overtones.

There is little doubt Guerrero was alarmed and concerned about what went on in DC that day. The same can certainly be said about the other six board members.

But given the protectory of the national debate and how acrimonious it has become, a local school board taking a symbolic stance would have been divisive.

And it would have been symbolic at best. Manteca Unified, just like the other 1,000 school districts in the state, has no legal authority to intervene in a meaningful manner in the affairs surrounding Jan. 6. In fact, the only authority local school boards have in California is what the state legislature grants them.

This doesn’t mean they can’t express a collective opinion which is all the resolution would have reflected. Other board members shared the same concerns in varying degrees that Guerrero did.

But the bottom line was the district’s mission statement that all seven trustees embraced. It was clear such a resolution, if adopted, at best would be a needless distraction from their efforts to work to do everything possible to assure individual student success. At worse, it could be used by some as a divisive wedge to do irreparable harm to the schools and ultimately erode efforts aimed at assuring the educational success of individual students.

The wise decision to steer clear of such a distraction has allowed the district to stay focused while navigating the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Such a clear-eyed stance by the board meant the district was able to pursue a balanced path that put a premium on the value of in-person learning by maximizing every possible measure to keep students and staff safe and healthy.

It is why Manteca Unified was among the first to secure things such as medical quality air purifiers in each classroom. It was why Manteca Unified was among the first to return to in-person learning.

By avoiding the temptation of many other school boards to steer to the hard left or hard right during the pandemic whether it involved mask debates or the cultural wars, Manteca Unified has been able to keep its focus on what matters the most — the educational success of 24,000 plus individual students.

The worst example of school boards straying from what they were elected to do can be found less than 100 miles away in San Francisco, the birthplace of the California’s public school system.

It was there in October 1849 that John C. Pelton opened the first public school in an old Baptist church where children from poor families were allowed to attend for free without having to pay a subscription.

And for those wrapped up in party labels and the assumption they brand someone and their descendants for eternity, it was John Swett who was instrumental in founding the California Education Society — the forerunner of the California Teachers Association. Swett was elected as the fourth State Public Superintendent of Schools in 1863. Among his many accomplishments his biggest was making public schools in California free for all children regardless of their family’s level of wealth.

In today’s world this might strike some people as a “liberal” concept.  As such, judged against how many paint people today by their affiliations, it might shock people such as Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez, and Faauuga Moliga to learn John Swett was a Republican.

After all, in an age where too many of us view others in absolutes based on our biases, anyone who identifies as a Republican or a Democrat — past, present, or future — can only be as we see them based on the label they are attached to in 2022.

Collins, Lopez, and Moliga are the three San Francisco Unified school trustees recalled last week by margins ranging from 72 to 79 percent.

Much has been written about how such landslide votes are the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the Democratic Party and the progressive movement.

Sorry, but that is hogwash, pure and simple.

San Francisco voters aren’t on the verge of a wholesale abandonment of their core beliefs.

Yes, there was the move to strip names from schools named after those people that didn’t toe the line of the 2022 progressive movement whether it was Abraham Lincoln or Dianne Feinstein.
Yes, there was the move to eliminate merit-based admissions to academically competitive Lowell School in favor of a lottery system because more than half the enrollment is composed of Asian Americans.

But the real gripe was the school system wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do, which is assure the success of individual students.

San Francisco Unified from the start eschewed a return to in-person learning until such time the progressive power structure deemed it was OK even if health authorities said it could happen much sooner. It is why San Francisco was the last holdout for a return to classrooms.

Contrast that with Manteca Unified. The school board from the outset made returning students to in-person learning the No. 1 priority once public health experts and not the board’s collective preferred politics determined it was appropriate to do so.

And by doing that, the district worked diligently to put in place measures to make that happened — physical and otherwise — instead of devoting its energies into determining whether it was politically correct to have a school named after Abraham Lincoln or devoting energy to find something in Joshua Cowell’s background that would make having a school named for him an affront to modern-era sensibilities.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com