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Efforts by a group of Walnut Creek schools to leave one of the Bay Area’s largest school districts and form their own were killed Wednesday by the state Board of Education after a large coalition of opponents likened the secession attempt to racial segregation.

The 10-member board’s unanimous vote extinguishes a yearslong effort by families in the city’s Northgate neighborhood to ditch the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, which serves 29,000 K-12 students in a diverse swath of central Contra Costa County.

The board’s decision was centered around how a departure by Northgate High School, Foothill Middle School and Bancroft, Valle Verde and Walnut Acres elementary schools would split up campus facilities unevenly between the two new districts, forcing each to spend more on new space to accommodate their students.

Before the vote about two dozen public commenters — every one of whom opposed the secession proposal — and a couple board members themselves said a graver consequence would be removing majority-white campuses in higher-income neighborhoods from the larger, more diverse school district.

And while the backers of the secession proposal argue that Mt. Diablo has become bloated with too many students and unmanageable finances, the board members felt the proponents didn’t make a convincing case at Wednesday’s hearing for why they should be allowed to leave the district.

“What I didn’t really hear was anything terribly specific as to what was not working,” said state board member Kim Pattillo-Brownson. “What I did hear very clearly and specifically, however, was a rather significant amount of adverse impact in terms of effectively removing the highest-performing high school in the whole district.”

The state’s decision upholds a county Board of Education vote in 2017 to reject the secession application. And it will allow Mount Diablo Unified’s leadership — which steadfastly opposed the secession and secured the support of faculty and staff unions — to avoid having its voters decide on the latest of several attempts by families to leave the district.

The plan’s proponents have the option of filing a lawsuit against the state. But one organizer who spoke at Wednesday’s hearing said the political deck had been stacked against the movement, and that the district had smeared their intentions of seeking more financial accountability.

“Our quest has been about the children,” said Linda Loza, a secession leader and district volunteer whose three children graduated from Northgate High. “Regardless of what the opposition says, it has never been about exclusivity, race, real estate values, etcetera.”

“We wish that every child would reap the benefits that come with focused education, local control and a smaller school system that represents the needs of the children within the community,” Loza added. “We never imagined that we would find this to be an insurmountable feat plagued with nasty tactics, defaming lies, outright coercion and power-brokering.”

Mt. Diablo has campuses in Concord, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill, Martinez, Clayton, Pittsburg and Lafayette, as well as the Pacheco, Bay Point and Clyde communities. The five schools seeking to split from the district are all located in Walnut Creek, and the median income around Northgate High School is 75% higher than the overall Mt. Diablo district, according to American Community Survey data compiled by Census Reporter.

The proposed new district’s student body would have been 16% Hispanic or Latino and 51% white. Mt. Diablo’s student body is is 45% Hispanic or Latino and less than 30% white, per the state board’s staff report.

Given Mt. Diablo’s enormous size, the Northgate schools’ departure would increase the district’s portion of non-white students by only a small margin, from 70% to about 73%. Because of that, the state education department’s staff determined Northgate’s secession attempt would not promote racial segregation, though it still recommended rejecting the proposal over a messy splitting-up of campus facilities.

Board member Sharon Olken worried that a secession would have resulted in the creation of magnet programs that allowed students to transfer to the Northgate schools. That could have  actually worsened the gap in diversity levels between the two districts if it led to even more white students leaving Mt. Diablo behind, she said.

Parents, teachers, school board members and a handful of district employees who spoke at the meeting were united in condemning the secession as an attempt to separate white students from the rest.

“We do not need to start segregating our schools again — that was back in the ’60s,” said Vanessa Miranda, a food-service worker in the district.

Karen Jenkins, a Northgate High teacher with three daughters who graduated from the district, said the plan would disadvantage special education students and English-language learners because of an “inability to share resources” between the districts.

Northgate High Principal Kelly Cooper, who previously taught for 17 years at the more diverse Ygnacio Valley High, which wouldn’t have been invited to the new district, called the proposal “blatantly segregation and classist.”

“While the intent might not have been there, the outcomes are very clear,” Cooper said. “We are better together.”

Giona Picheco is running to unseat incumbent state representative Charlene Lima in House District 14 (Cranston, Providence). Lima was first elected when Picheco was two years-old. If elected, Picheco would be, to the knowledge of Uprise RI, the first openly transgender state legislator in Rhode Island.

Pacheco served in the United States Navy and currently works as an engineering technician. When not working she enjoys spending time with her dogs.

The interview was conducted outside Lou Umberto’s Italian Kitchen in Knightsville.

Uprise RI: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and why you’re running?

Giona Picheco: I served in the Navy and it was there that I was a leader, the supervisor of my division. And it was about that time when the previous presidential administration instituted a ban on transgender people serving in the military. This was also the time when I was coming into more confidence and acceptance of myself. So I couldn’t let that stand and I felt I had to do something.

When I got out of the Navy, I decided to get involved in politics and try to make sure a new president was elected, get involved in local politics and be active in the community. I’ve seen so much division, locally and across the country from elected leaders and politics in general, that doesn’t get addressed.

Uprise RI: What aspects of the transgender experience or transgender legal issues don’t get addressed?

Picheco: We’re such an easy target for people, so when someone’s mad about something they blame transgender people, blame LGBTQ people, blame women, blame immigrants, blame anybody – but never take responsibility for any issues.

Uprise RI: Recently we had Patricia Morgan float an anti-trans bill – and actually in the Senate, we had Elaine Morgan float another anti-trans bill but I don’t think that bill got a hearing…

Picheco: No, there was no hearing on the Senate bill. There was a hearing on the bill to prevent people’s gender expression from being respected in school, and to prevent LGBTQ studies or any type of history or subject that people might find divisive. No history, unless you tell the opposite side of it as well…

Uprise RI: Do we really want to hear the pro-slavery side?

Picheco: Exactly. We don’t need to hear that. Tell history as it is.

Uprise RI: So that’s one of your motivations for running. What else?

Picheco: That’s my motivation for getting involved. My motivation to run for this seat is that I’ve seen so many issues facing this community that haven’t been addressed. We have a lack of affordable housing, our schools are not adequately invested in and the accessibility of healthcare is inadequate. I did not see any of these issues being addressed by our current representation. I felt someone needed to bring a different voice.

Uprise RI: As you walk your district and talk to your neighbors, what are the issues they’re bringing to you? What are they concerned about? What are you hearing from people in your neighborhoods? We’re in Knightsville right now, right?

Picheco: We’re in Knightsville my district also covers part of Arlington and parts of Silver Lake in Providence. But a lot of the issues are the same. It’s the lack of housing, the price of groceries and gas, and the cost of living going up. People are not able to afford the simple things they need to get by. Inadequate schooling. And a lot of people are furious about the Supreme Court decision, overturning Roe v. Wade. They want to see their [reproductive] rights protected.

Uprise RI: Which we had a chance to do this year, but the General Assembly decided against expanding abortion coverage by not passing the Equality in Abortion Coverage Act. Given that, what are your thoughts about the General Assembly?

Picheco: I think we need to elect more people who care about getting things done and who aren’t worrying about their donors. We need people who actually care about addressing these issues, like passing the EACA instead of waiting until it’s a ‘safe time’ to do so.

Uprise RI: Which I guess would be next year because it won’t be an election year…

Picheco: It should be right now, but since they don’t seem to want to do that, it’s going to have to be next year.

Uprise RI: As a person who was in Navy, what’s your attitude towards guns?

Picheco: I am very much for gun safety legislation. I think weapons of war should not be in the hands of a person on the street and they should not be available to anybody who walks into gun store to buy one. There should be a ban on buying assault weapons, high capacity magazines (which they did pass) and a higher age limit to purchase weapons. We should strengthen background checks to make sure that high risk people are not getting these weapons to inflict harm on the community.

Uprise RI: You mentioned healthcare earlier. What can Rhode Island do to make healthcare more equitable, affordable, and available?

Picheco: My specific target in healthcare is improving the quality of healthcare for seniors and veterans. The COVID pandemic really made clear that seniors often get left out of the loop as far as nursing homes and senior care facilities. We need to improve the quality of care and make sure that staff are adequately compensated so they can provide a high level of care for their patients.

Uprise RI: A lot of healthcare workers in institutional settings are grossly underpaid.

Picheco: Exactly. You can’t expect people to put effort into their job if you’re not adequately paying them. They need that incentive to make it worthwhile for them to do the job.

Uprise RI: The General Assembly made some pretty good steps towards protecting the environment this session, to give them some credit. What are your thoughts on environmental protections, especially when it comes to your district?

Picheco: Here there’s a lack of green space. I think there needs to be a lot more trees planted and more public areas with green space for people to enjoy. But one of the reasons I started thinking about running is because my opponent voted against Act on Climate. I was pretty annoyed with that because I think we need to put in a lot more effort to protect the environment and make sure that we’re protecting the world for the next generation.

Uprise RI: What other votes has your opponent made that you think were wrong?

Picheco: I was annoyed that she voted against the Let Rhode Island Vote Act, voted against the high capacity magazine ban and voted against marijuana legalization.

Uprise RI: Wow. Those are all bread and butter Democrat issues. She is a Democrat, right? What are your thoughts about the conservative wing of the Rhode Island Democratic Party?

Picheco: I think we need to elect Democrats who are actually Democrats and who represent the values of the party. The Democratic Party supports gun safety, supports LGBTQ equality, and supports abortion access. We need people who identify as Democrats to fight for these values and protect them.

Uprise RI: Let’s talk a little bit about education, another subject you touched on. What can the state do to help Cranston do better?

Picheco: We need to reevaluate the funding formula for education and we need to provide the Right to Education to students in the state, so everyone has equitable access to education. We need to provide much better infrastructure for schools and renovate them to be adequate for the educational needs of our students. For teaching staff, we need to give them proper pay and the incentives they need to put in the effort to teach their students.

Uprise RI: What can we do on housing?

Picheco: We need to find a way to create affordable housing and keep prices low enough for people to afford it.

Uprise RI: When I talk to poverty and homelessness advocates, they say it’s not just about ‘affordable’ housing. It’s about low income or even no income housing. Public option housing, allowing the state to build housing…

Picheco: Yes, absolutely. Whatever we can do to expand housing for people who need it.

Uprise RI: You’ve been involved locally with the progressive group Cranston Forward. How has that work been going and how has that been influencing your thinking about what Cranston needs?

Picheco: It’s definitely gotten me a lot more involved in the local issues of Cranston. We have done some great things, as far as helping to push the city council to establish a permanent diversity commission, pushing them to hold hearings about how to use the American Rescue Plan Act funding and pushing them towards what we thought was the right thing to use the money for. Unfortunately, it became apparent that there’s been too much mismanagement with the city’s budget, and there are now a lot of budget shortfalls that the city council need to accommodate.

Uprise RI: What are your thoughts about working with House leadership and the rest of the General Assembly?

Picheco: The General Assembly is a collaborative body. My intention is to go there willing to work with people. I am not going to shut anybody out. I haven’t met with the Speaker, the Majority Leader or anyone else in the House, so I can’t say for sure how we will work together, but I intend to go in there with the positive attitude of being able to work with everyone.

Uprise RI: Have you gotten any endorsements yet from any of the state’s progressive groups?

Picheco: I’ve been endorsed by the Rhode Island Working Families Party.

Uprise RI: Talking with you, I get the impression you’re very direct, but also succinct. You seem to be a problem solver.

Picheco: When I’m talking, I feel I need to clearly get across what I have to say. It’s better to be direct and concise when doing that. Rambling and going on constantly makes it hard for people to get what the point is.

Uprise RI: What is your day job?

Picheco: I’m an engineering tech in Middletown. I got the job because of my connections with the Navy.

Uprise RI: What do you to do when you’re not working and you’re not being a politician?

Picheco: Well, I have two dogs who I love more than anything and I spend time with them.

Uprise RI: Can you give me an idea of how your pitch goes? Why should people here in Cranston vote for you?

Picheco: We need people who are going to focus on solving problems. We need to elect people who aren’t going to look for sound bites and stoke division, or solve tiny little issues to get by and hold onto their seats. We need people to tackle big issues – actually solve the problems that people in the community have. That’s why I’m running. That’s why I think we need new people to run all over the state. I think it’s great that there’s been so many declared candidates.

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