School trustee berated Spanish speakers in public. Paso Robles deserves better

Paso Robles School Board President Christopher Arend displayed a stunning lack of empathy for Spanish-speaking parents when he urged them to “speak in a language we can understand” and begrudged spending money on a certified translator for board meetings.

“If we start turning this into a bilingual event, we’re going to bust the budget,” he told Tribune reporter Mackenzie Shuman following the Jan. 12 meeting.

Spanish-speaking parents called into the meeting during the public comment period to voice concern over the lack of transparency about plans to possibly shut down Georgia Brown Elementary — a campus where 71.5% of students are Hispanic or Latino.

As board president, Arend should have welcomed them and apologized for the lack of translation.

Instead, the elected leader of one of the county’s most diverse school districts — 55% of students are Hispanic or Latino — discouraged parents from speaking Spanish.

“Under the California Constitution, the official language of the state of California is English, and we conduct our business in English,” he said. “We tried to accommodate speakers who do not have sufficient command of English, but I want to remind everyone out there: If you have sufficient command of English, please speak in a language that we understand.”

He doubled down when he spoke on the Dave Congalton radio talk show on Friday, making a point of stressing that one of the Spanish speaking callers is “perfectly fluent in English.”

Speaking Spanish to the school board was “disrespectful and rude.” He also called it a “theatrical stunt to make a point.”

When Congalton speculated that it may have been for the benefit of Spanish-speaking parents listening to the meeting, Arend responded, “Public comment is an opportunity for the public to address their concerns to the board, not to speechify.”

Not to “speechify” in Spanish, anyway.

Legal requirements

Hiring a translator for board meetings isn’t specifically required, though the district is mandated by law to provide notices, reports, statements and records in Spanish.

But if the district sincerely wants all parents to be involved in their children’s education, it should provide translation services at board meetings, especially when there is an item on the agenda that greatly affects Hispanic families.

While the district has been struggling financially, an interpreter costs the reasonable amount of $24 an hour, according to the San Luis Coastal Unified School District.

That’s not going to “bust the budget.”

District Superintendent Curt Dubost told The Tribune that efforts are being made to provide an interpreter for future meetings.

That’s good to hear, but it doesn’t undo the harm Arend’s comments may have caused.

Speaking in public to an audience of officials can be intimidating even for native English speakers, and after the rude reception parents got at the last meeting, it’s bound to make some more reluctant to participate at board meetings in the future.

Systemic racism ‘a myth’

This isn’t the first time Arend has been called out for his views on race.

In September, he wrote a lengthy essay for Cal Coast News in which he claimed that systemic racism is a myth.

Here are some excerpts:

• “The doctrine of ‘systemic racism’ is ... shown to be, in essence, nothing more than intellectual contortion intended to sow division in the United States of America.”
• “Racial prejudice can only be systemic if the system is designed to reflect racial bias, which has not been the case since the civil rights legislation in the 1960s, or if the system is controlled by individuals who act with racial bias, which is also not the case in modern America unless the political, economic and cultural elites are considered to be racially prejudiced.”
• “Some individuals such as Robin DiAngelo, the author of ‘White Fragility,’ charge high fees when they peddle the concept of systemic racism to corporations and other audiences, in effect, selling dispensation. The term ‘race hustler’ comes to mind.”

Is it any wonder that the writer of that essay would lecture parents against speaking Spanish and pompously declare that English is the official language of California?

Arend can rail all he wants, but that’s not going to change the current reality: California is a minority majority state. Latinos are the single largest ethnic group. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language.

The school board should be celebrating and encouraging diversity — not trying to bully parents into speaking English.

Christopher Arend is a smart man; he trained as a German interpreter in the U.S. Army and later graduated from law school in Germany, where he practiced international corporate and finance law. He settled on the Central Coast in 2005.

He is a well-known conservative in San Luis Obispo County, but this isn’t about his political ideology.

This is about whether he has the kindness, compassion and basic decency we expect from all public officials, but especially from those in charge of our children’s education.

He’s failed on those counts.

Arend was elected in 2018; he’s up for reelection in 2022.

Next year, we strongly urge Paso Robles voters to elect someone more worthy of the office.

This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "School trustee berated Spanish speakers in public. Paso Robles deserves better."