Hate In A Small Town 5 (Visalia Edition)

February 15, 2026

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Since the Pride Month proclamation fiasco in Porterville, California, in the summer of 2013, I’ve written several blogs on ‘Hate In A Small Town’. You can find them here: Hate In A Small Town (1) 9-18-2014, Hate In A Small Town (2) 6-18-2014, Porterville City Council Still Snubbing LGBTQ Community 9-24-2014, and Hate In A Small Town 4 – It’s Déjà vu all over again 3-19-2025. The first blog was printed in the Weekend Edition of the Visalia Times Delta on September 21-22, 2013. Those blogs all dealt with a nearby city, Porterville, California. My city, Visalia, has been better about LGBTQ issues, for the most part, until this incident. (Not that Visalia has been a gay beacon, by any means. In 2002, the ACLU settled a lawsuit against the Visalia Unified School District, in which the District “agreed to adopt sweeping reforms to address anti-gay harassment, including groundbreaking measures to train staff and students with the goal of preventing harassment before it happens,” *see below for the Consent order)

The picture above started making the rounds on social media on Thursday, February 12, 2026. Here’s the background, as I know it at the time of this publication.

A class picture was taken in an auditorium, with some of the ASB officers wearing white t-shirts with lettering, designed to spell out “Always Legit Class of 2026”. See the image below.

The event was apparently also hosting freshman orientation, with students from feeder middle schools on campus. The current story circulating is that two eighth grade boys were seen holding hands, triggering the students in the above picture to spell out a homophobic slur, and have other students take pictures. It’s not known if the targets of the slur saw it in the moment, but they have certainly seen it on social media since. It’s also not clear where Redwood High School staff and teachers were during this incident, as they appear not to have put a stop to the students posing for the picture.

Students immediately posted to Instagram and other social media sites, and the shit hit the fan. “Going viral” doesn’t do justice to how those posts took off, and how they were received by the community.

Visalia Unified School District began immediate damage control. Click on ‘more’ for the rest of the story.

More

Public Records Request: Visalia Unified School District – the next step

January 11, 2026

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I’m still trying to find out why “special meetings” held in the Visalia Unified School District’s Boardroom are not recorded and posted to YouTube, as are their regular meetings. (“Special meetings” held elsewhere I don’t expect to see video recorded, simply due to the equipment not being available at remote locations. That doesn’t apply to the Board room, since the equipment is all right there.)

Here’s my latest email to the District:

1/11/2026
Sara Sanchez, Legal Coordinator, Human Resources Development
Visalia Unified School District

Dear Sara Sanchez,

This is a request under the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 6250 et seq.).

Background:
On December 18, 2025, you responded to my prior correspondence regarding:
Request No. 1
A copy of the District’s “policy of not recording ‘special meetings'”.
You responded:
“After conducting a reasonable search, the District determines that it has no records that are
subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will
be produced.”
Request No. 2
“This request seeks copies of “any internal memos, emails, or other directives of any sort that
direct staff not to record ‘special meetings’ that occur in the Boardroom.””
You responded:
“Pursuant to Government Code section 7922.600, the District seeks clarification regarding your
request in order to have a focused and effective request that reasonably describes identifiable
records. The clarification will help us narrow the search in our email and other records systems
and retrieve a more manageable number of communications that can be reviewed by District
staff. In particular, please specify the date range of the “internal memos, emails, or other
directives of any sort that direct staff not to record ‘special meetings’ that occur in the
Boardroom.” Additionally, please identify the names or titles of District personnel regarding
whom you are seeking the requested correspondence.”

To limit unnecessary records searches, I believe that the District employee responsible for recording Board of Trustee meetings held in the Boardroom of the Visalia Unified School District, or their supervisor(s), are the most likely sources of the information requested. Those job titles may include senior administrative assistant, technological services; senior information technology technician; information technology technician; and/or information technology assistant.

Please provide copies of any memos, emails, or other directions to District employees responsible for recording and posting the regular Board meetings that direct them to not record or post ‘special meetings’ held in the Board Chambers. Since Board meetings are posted to the District’s YouTube channel as of 1/25/2022, please limit the search to 1/1/2021 through the present date.

If any portion of these records is deemed exempt from disclosure, I request that you redact only those portions and provide the remainder of the records, citing the specific legal justification for each redaction as required by the CPRA.

Please inform me in advance of any fees associated with compiling or copying these records. If the estimated costs exceed $20, please contact me for approval before proceeding.

As provided by the CPRA, I look forward to your response within 10 calendar days regarding the availability of these records.

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,
Jim J. Reeves, Jr.
jim.visalia@gmail.com

They’ll get the email Monday morning. We’ll see what happens. Cross your fingers.

Visalia Unified School District and unrecorded meetings – update

December 28, 2025

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The Visalia Unified School District responded to my request for information. There were two parts to that response.

Part One:

So, if I’m reading this correctly, there is no policy that says ‘special meetings’ will not be video recorded. That seems odd. If it’s routine to record Board meetings when held in the Boardroom, why aren’t ‘special meetings’ video recorded? Does this mean some manager told staff to not record the meetings? On what basis was that order, if it happened, made? If no such order was made, is the staff member making the decisions themselves? I rather doubt that.

Part Two:

They want the name or title of the District personnel that I’m requestion information about in order to search email or other records. Unfortunately, the District does not list employee positions online. I am unable to determine who might be the person(s) whose records would be appropriate to check for information with an online search.

They also want a date range to search, but how do I determine what time frame would be appropriate, since they do not include all of the past agendas and minutes on their web pages.

I’m currently researching online documents from the District to see if I can figure out just why they don’t record ‘special meetings’, but if I can’t find anything I may have to start making phone calls.

Seems like a lot of work for such a simple request.

Visalia Unified School District/Visalia City Council meeting not recorded? Follow up –

November 9, 2025

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Jim Reeves & The Missing Meeting: An Analysis of Transparency, Accountability, and the Curious Case of Visalia Unified’s Unrecorded Oct 23, 2025 Session

Paul Flores does a deep dive into the situation regarding Visalia Unified School District and the Visalia City Council’s unrecorded joint meeting on October 23, 2025.

Visalia Unified School District/Visalia City Council joint meeting not recorded?

November 9, 2025

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A previous Visalia Unified School District Board meeting.

On October 23, 2025, the Visalia Unified School District held a special joint meeting with the Visalia City Council. This was the second such meeting held in 2025, and was held in the District’s Board room.

The following is a part of the posted agenda for that meeting:

Members of the public may address the Board on any agenda item when the item comes to the Board for consideration. At regular meetings of the Board, members of the public may also address the Board regarding non-agenda items that are nonetheless within the Board’s jurisdiction during the general public comment portion of the agenda. Pursuant to Board Bylaw 9323, the Board will limit individual comments to no more than 3 minutes and individual topics to 20 minutes.

The District reserves the right to not hear comments, or portions of comments, that violate meeting guidelines.

I was the only member of the public to take advantage of the public comments section of the meeting. In it, I updated the School Board and the City Council on the recent Pride Visalia festival, held on October 11, 2025. During the remarks, I reminded and invited both the City Council members and the Board of Directors for the school district that The Source LGBT+ Center was available to consult with them on LGBTQ+ issues, and provide resources and information they might find useful in both their professional and personal lives.

The Visalia Unified School District takes video and audio recordings of the meetings, and posts them to a YouTube channel for the public to view. No post of this special meeting occurred.

I waited several days for the video to appear, as sometimes delays in posting can occur, sometimes the posters fault, sometimes YouTube’s. No recording of the meeting appeared.

I sent an email to the school district, asking if a recording was made, and when it would be available.

From: Jim Reeves jim.visalia@gmail.com
Date: October 28, 2025 at 5:32:34 PM PDT
To: cgutierrez04@vusd.org
Subject: Board special meeting video

Hi,
Does a video recording of the October 23, 2025 joint meeting between the School Board and the Visalia City Council exist? I’ve checked the YouTube channel, and found no video. I’ve noticed in the listing of meetings that special meetings don’t show a video.
Is there a video available that I can get a copy of? Or an audio recording?
Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Jim Reeves
Jim.visalia@gmail.com
Sent from my iPad

After several days, I received the following response:

“After conducting a reasonable search, the District determines that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request. Accordingly, no records will be produced.”

That’s a strange way to phrase it, at least to us non-lawyers.

I’ve followed up with the following email to the Board President, and the Board member for my area:

President Naylor, Boardmember DeJong,

I attended the Special Meeting of October 23, 2025. On October 28, I emailed a request for a copy of the video, or an audio recording, of the meeting since it had not been posted on YouTube. On November 4, I received the attached email, indicating “that it has no public records that are subject to disclosure under the PRA and responsive to the request”.
I have noticed in the listing of prior meetings, that ‘Special Meetings’ often do not have a video recording. Is this a formal policy of the District? If so, can I be directed to that policy?
It seems odd that no recording is made of the meeting, despite it being held in the Board room, and utilizing the audio/video equipment there.
I would like to understand why the District does not record these meetings, and I hope you can clear this up for me.
Mr. DeJong, I’m CCing you on this because I reside in your area.

Jim Reeves
jim.visalia@gmail.com

Board President Naylor responded:

Jim,
Thank you for your email regarding the recording of the special board session with the city. I have forwarded your email to the district office to look into this matter.
Again, thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Joy

We’ll see what the next week brings, and if the District responds further.

My goal now is to find out if a recording was not made of the special meeting, why not? Is there a District policy prohibiting it? If so, I want to see that policy, and when and how it was implemented. If it’s just a “we just don’t do that”, I want to know the reasoning why, and under whose authority.

Stay tuned.

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