No Laughing Matter

In its April’s Fool Day issue (March 30), the editors of the Weekly spoofed the Eugene 4J school board in “A School Board Odyssey,” where students replace ousted board members with Chatbot artificial intelligence software “to take over the district’s governing body,” implying that the entire board needs replacement to end the “squabbling.”

Of course, this is foolishness. Anyone who attends or Zoom-watches school board meetings knows that the discord and animosity is not caused by all seven board members, but is caused by one board member, the same one who has launched charges of mistreatment against all other members of the board, the current and previous superintendents — and Eugene Weekly itself.

Watch this six-minute recording clip from the end of the Nov. 16, 2022 board meeting to see the disruption, and how the other members try to deal with it: YouTube.com/watch?v=RJLN09inXe8. Start at 2 hours, 56 minutes, and watch till the end at 3 hours, 2 minutes. It is painful to watch, but it reveals what is going on.

School board elections are next month; inform yourself before you believe any more tomfoolery.

Roscoe Caron

Eugene

Editor’s note: School board member Laural O’Rourke has also criticized Caron and Community Alliance for Public Education, an organization of which he is a member.