October 12, 2022

Message to the Community, October 12 
October 12,  2022      

 Dear FCUSD Community:

A racist incident occurred on one of our campuses. Please keep reading as we update our community on this incident and our larger effort to confront racism.

Last Friday evening at Vista del Lago as the football team played Del Campo, sometime between halftime and the end of the football game, unknown individual(s) entered the visiting locker room and wrote hateful racist remarks on a whiteboard. 

The Del Campo team saw the whiteboard with the remarks as they entered the visiting locker room at the end of the game. At this point, we do not know who did this. Until leadership at FCUSD identifies who wrote the racist statement Friday evening, we will continue our investigation with our school community, which began immediately upon learning of the incident on Friday, and in cooperation with the Del Campo coach and their school administration to learn who might have entered the locker room during the game. 

We want our community to be clear. Folsom Cordova Unified School District (FCUSD) denounces and abhors racism and is appalled by the racist remarks that were written. This act does not reflect the values of the District, Vista del Lago, or the football program. 

Events like this cause pain and harm, to our Black students and staff and our community. We will continue to provide education and training to confront and denounce racism. We will provide social and emotional support to those affected. We will enact, to the fullest extent, disciplinary measures on those found in our system to have instigated a racist activity and are continually committed to working in partnership with our community to confront racism.

We do know that the locker room was unlocked while the football game was being played. The protocol moving forward will be to lock all locker room access during game times at all FCUSD campuses. 

We will also be reinforcing our guidelines that prohibit loitering in areas of campuses not associated with game activity and reinforcing communication to our community that minors attending after-school events need to be accompanied and supervised by an adult. 

What are we doing and what more can be done?

In addition to the recently updated Board Policy 0410: Nondiscrimination In District Programs And Activities, we continue to support an Equity Advisory Committee, Staff Equity Leads, and Climate Facilitators to administer staff training and promote anti-racist and positive school culture for our school sites.

Earlier this school year we hosted the Leadership and Ethics training by Dwight Taylor Sr. for the student-athletes at Folsom High School which will be also offered to our other high schools this year. You can see pictures of that event here.

Furthermore, we enacted internal guidelines for decision-making at the beginning of this school year. All leadership decisions at the Cabinet and Management level are done through the lens of these four equity questions:

Four Equity Questions for Decision-Making:

• Who are the specific student groups impacted by this decision, policy, or practice?
• How have we engaged diverse community voice in specifying the problem that needs to be solved, success criteria for the program, and barriers that need to be removed in order to positively impact student outcomes?
• How will this action specifically accelerate and/or improve outcomes for Black or African American, Hispanic, English Learner, Special Education, foster and homeless, and/or low-income students?
• What steps do we need to take to make sure that underserved students benefit from this academic, enrichment, and/or wellness resource?

FCUSD believes confronting racism is a multi-pronged effort that involves everyone in the community. If you see something or know something, please let us know. You can do this by letting your school site principal know or by submitting an anonymous tip using this site here.

We know there is still work to be done. We are committed to continuing our effort to confront and denounce racism and appreciate the partnership with our community in doing so.

Sincerely,

Sarah Koligian, Ed.D
Superintendent
Folsom Cordova Unified School District