Opinion

After more than a decade of lawsuits, angry meetings and countless students graduating without having experienced a complete high school, it finally happened.

For the last 18 years, I taught a special education class in the Pajaro Valley. Many of my students were farmworker children with learning disabilities: problems paying attention, reading difficulties, hyperactivity, autism, lower IQ and struggles with self-control. I was shocked to discover that one of the most widely used pesticides in the world — chlorpyrifos — has, after over 20 years of solid research at UC Davis, Berkeley, Columbia University and elsewhere, been linked to these difficulties in learning and behavior.

This is an open letter to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District board, and an invitation to the community to support educators at the next board meeting, Sept. 13.

As the calendar turned to September, our seemingly extended spring weather finally gave into summer. And it was a record-breaker.