New Elk Grove school board member

You can use this draft letter and edit as you like. Personalizing it will make it stand out.

December 3, 2020

Dear [new school board member],

Congratulations on your election as the newest Elk Grove School Board Member!

My name is _________________________________ [your name] and I live in Elk Grove.

My son / daughter attends (name of the school that your child attends). [Omit if you do not have a child in the Elk Grove public schools.]

With over 60,000 students and 3,000 teachers, the Elk Grove Unified School District is a key institution in the lives of Elk Grove residents. Other government bodies such as Sacramento County and the City of Elk Grove have worked cooperatively with EGUSD on policies that affected the District and its students and teachers. The District remains the only government body that is responsible for the education and health of its students. The District can reach out to the County and the City for their cooperation on policies affecting education.

Teachers fight a daily battle for the minds and attention of students. It is a battle against cell phones. Every student has one. The phones and the many available apps, games, etc., can completely take over a student’s mind and attention for hours every day. This is what the telecom companies and cell phone companies want. But it is detrimental to the educational process. A new cell antenna near a school will cause students to use their phones more while at school, taking their minds and attention away from their teachers and classes. It will also expose students and teachers to more hazardous electromagnetic radiation.

The District should be quite concerned about and opposed to the placement of new 4G and 5G cell antennas near its schools.

The District and the City can and should work cooperatively to prevent this – or at least avoid making this problem worse. The City has the full discretionary power to do so by not approving new cell antennas near schools, say within 1,500’ of a school. Upon a request from the District the City may do that.

As you may know last year the City of Elk Grove approved a new 4G and 5G cell antenna policy consisting of changes in the Municipal Code and Master License Agreements with both AT&T and Verizon. During the time the City was preparing and negotiating the Code amendments and the MLAs it did not reach out to the Elk Grove Unified School District to ask its opinion on the placement of new cell antennas near schools.

The MLAs both say that the City Manager can add more new cell antennas to the City’s approved list. (Section 4.2a) That’s why the issue is not settled. Both AT&T and Verizon will want more cell antennas than those in their respective MLAs. Although the City has approved these City owned light poles as new cell antenna sites it has not yet issued the permits.

When the District found out this Summer that the City and AT&T were planning new cell antennas near Monterey Trail High School, Edward Harris, Jr. Middle School and Laguna Creek High School from a parent who did not want those antennas there, the District wrote to the City, conveying this parent’s request for the City to NOT issue permits for those cell antennas. The City took that request seriously and discussed it with AT&T. In the end AT&T agreed not to place a new cell antenna near Laguna Creek HS, but to revise and resubmit its application for a new cell antenna on a new pole across the street from the school. AT&T refused to relocate the cell antenna near Monterey Trail HS and Edward Harris, Jr. MS.

The end result of this informal cooperation between the District and the City was a small but significant protection of the students in the 2^nd story science classroom building at Laguna Creek High School from hazardous electromagnet radiation and from being even more distracted from their teachers and classes by a new cell antenna.

The District should continue to work with the City, as it did this Summer, to intervene on behalf of schools where the City, AT&T and Verizon are planning to install new cell antennas. The District should also adopt a resolution taking a position opposed to new cell antennas near schools (within 1,500’) and should ask the City to not approve any more new cell antennas within that range.

Will you commit to working for this on the school Board?

Please respond to this message.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

[Your name and address (or street, or just “Elk Grove resident”)]