It started in November with a district-leaked, closed-session video of leaders speaking in degrading terms about school staff and PTO activists and ended with the resignations of a superintendent and four school board members.

Camino Faculty Assn. members at work.

“We received a tip that the district posted a recording of a closed-session meeting, so we were able to hear our superintendent, board members, chief budget officer and more saying horrific things about staff and parent leaders. We had to prepare those that were talked about before they watched because it was really hurtful,” said Camino Faculty Association (CFA) President Cora Dillard.

The small community of Camino is a one-school district of less than 450 students in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. CFA counts just 26 members. The local had already been organizing with community leaders (efforts that resulted in a 10% investment in teacher salaries last year), so when the video leaked, its word-of-mouth meeting in Dillard’s classroom was packed with parents, grandparents, teachers and other staff. The first order of business: unifying the community by formalizing a coalition.

“Camino United for Students (CUFS) was born with a mission of delivering ‘School Leadership Our Students Deserve.’ We made sure to frame students at the center of everything we do,” reported Dillard. The community sought guidance on how to hold district leadership accountable, which required a new school board and superintendent. “Some in the audience were skeptical we could make it all happen.”

Community members packed the next board meeting in November with CUFS- branded signs demanding resignations. Board meetings were usually held in the school cafeteria but knowing a crowd was inevitable, the district switched the location to a tiny, difficult-to-find portable at the back of campus with space for 15 chairs.

Attendees quickly stacked chairs to accommodate the standing-room-only crowd. What followed were hours of parents and staff sharing stories of abusive behavior by the superintendent, which the board’s inaction tacitly approved by way of no consequences.

CFA President Cora Dillard.

“It was very emotional and raw. Parents and staff got up and shared their experiences: the superintendent asking a middle school girl her sexual orientation (because she courageously reported a student threat to kill all gay students); threatening a group of 6th graders on the first day of school by telling them that if they disrespect him, he will disrespect worse; and more. It was unbelievable and heartbreaking.”

“We are a small chapter, but our community has a huge heart and when we organize for our students, we all win!”

— Camino Faculty Association President Cora Dillard

Recordings of a few testimonials were spliced together with examples of emotional intelligence, for example, to demonstrate the long-term damage the Superintendent’s actions were causing the students and the community. In one video, the PTO president, who was disparaged in the leaked video for her solidarity with her children’s teachers, bravely recounted how she was sexually harassed by the superintendent and gaslit when she complained. The video spliced her testimony together with a YouTube video on gaslighting and superintendent emails to show evidence of the damage being wrought on the community.

The CUFS Facebook page exploded. The videos received thousands of views and as the coalition gained strength, activists found their collective voice.

Dillard led the community in a process to surface the values they want in a school board member and to generate a list of board commitments: meet with school staff and the PTO regularly, be on campus regularly, and run in the fall election. “Our board president resigned first and we had a CUFS coalition meeting. A spectacular PTO volunteer stepped forward. We helped her get appointed to the board in January with videos highlighting her background and commitment to our school, provided workshops on school finance and other information to prepare her and she won,” said Dillard.

Continued community pressure at board meetings, on social media, and even the local newspaper helped force out both the superintendent and next board president. “I was at the CTA Issues Conference in Las Vegas. Early Saturday morning, watching the special board meeting in the convention hallway, I screamed when they announced the resignations!”

Everything happened quickly afterwards: CUFS held several more meetings to identify and support more candidates by consensus as board resignations occurred. In the end, the coalition was able to win the appointment of four new “CommUNITY Board Members,” as they are known in Camino.

Immediately after a majority of CommUNITY Board Members were sworn in, they voted to fire the law firm bleeding the district with legal fees. In an attempt to punish teachers, the previous board illegally reduced CFA’s 20-minute board presentation time to three.

Because four board seats were appointed, all will be up for election this fall. CFA and CUFS will organize and work to defend seats and win the last remaining seat. In the meantime, one of the most important responsibilities of the board — selection of a new superintendent — is in the trusted hands of CommUNITY Board Members. Hope and renewal have replaced dread and stress on campus.

“I grew up here, Camino made me,” emphasized Dillard. “My children go to this school. I was not going to give it up without a fight. A CTA community engagement grant supported CUFS with food and childcare so families could participate in actions. But we didn’t have paid release time. We are a small chapter, but our community has a huge heart and when we organize for our students, we all win!”

Dillard was a selected presenter at the NEA National Leadership Summit in Chicago in March to share CFA’s successes and inspire educators nationally to build power.

Said CTA Board Member Mike Patterson by video to the packed audience, “Camino is a model for small rural chapters across the nation on how to organize, how to get your parents and community behind you, and do the right thing for your students.”

Follow Camino United for Students on their Facebook page.