LAUSD Dir of Comm Engagement threatens free speech! Antonio Plascencia amenaza la libre expresión!

During a public parent committee meeting, LAUSD manager of community affairs threatens parent’s and the public's free speech with “investigations” if they speak out against district personnel.

Durante una reunión pública del comité de padres de LAUSD, el director de servicios a la comunidad amenaza la libre expresión de padres y el público con potencial de investigaciones si hablan en contra del personal del distrito.
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Partial Transcript:
During the public comment or during the chat there are statements that are oftentimes made directed toward our personnel. There's also statements that are made toward parents directly. And I want to acknowledge that our engagement within our office and in our committee work is to ensure those participating can speak to the issues and the topics that we're discussing as a team.

And I say that as a team because both our membership as well as our personnel—we are part of the team. And during public comment we will see in the chat use of the chat by public, or even if it's used by membership, we want to just remind you of our rules of decorum for the public.

And what are those rules of decorum? That means that we should come in in an environment to uplift one another, specifically not using slanderous statements, targeted attacks, or coming and speaking about individuals.

And as I share this goes for our members, for people in the public that are coming in as guests, and also our personnel. And public, you know, it's really important that in those, if you look at those Rules of Decorum, those are the exact same norms that we use in the Board of Education.

And so, our Rules of Decorum highlight that each person who addresses the committees shall not make personal, impertinent, slanderous, or profane remarks to any committee member, staff, or public.

So that is language that whenever anyone signs up for public comment, whenever a member is interacting or engaging, those are important tenets to offering our community a safe and welcoming environment.

For the public I do want to reiterate that if our office sees any ongoing use of language targeting an individual or really going after an individual with the intent trying to directly debate with them in a way that really is trying to go against the person and not the topic, we will be responding by pausing microphones in the public comment.

And as I see some heads nodding I appreciate that sense of importance on this matter because you all are parents, you're members of our community and the public should engage to talk about topics and not about personnel and make defamatory statements against individuals.
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For individuals as for your awareness that do essentially participate in disrespectful type of conduct or statements, we do investigate and the follow up might be that in the future your microphone is cut if you engage in such behavior.

And if you have, we may explore options of inviting persons that have a reputation for coming in in public comment to target individuals, to provide their public comment in other means outside speaking on a microphone.

We want to respect the voice of individuals but I think putting a stop to the usage of this space to address and target individuals—that is something that within our office that we feel is really important.

It's aligned to our policy and also our district’s harassment policy. For the membership, we also have a Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct is our guidance of how we go about following up and ensuring that the same level of respect, same level of support for personnel, for our members, and the public. That we are not being divisive but actually being able to help the work of what's on the agenda.
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So I want to highlight this because our office in the Office of Student, Family and Community Engagement there are oftentimes statements that are said about our office. And I will tell you that our team collectively are individuals with strong values. Their heart is connected into the work.
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And we understand that oftentimes there might be disagreements but again we ask officers, members, and the public to ensure that we are all treated with dignity, with respect and with the safe environment to be able to engage, serve and learn.

So this is the first element that I wanted to include in here for us along with our Guidelines for Safe and Welcoming Environment, because as we investigate we want to make sure that as we're doing our investigations there are procedures where it can lead to suspending members and it also affords us the opportunity to ensure that the public is speaking respectfully.
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This is a recording a May 1, 2025 public meeting of the Parent Advisory Committee for the Los Angeles Unified School District, a state-mandated committee which reviews and comments on the Local Control and Accountability Plan, a formal budget and state-required report for all school districts in California.