Latino families say hostile climate drove them from Pope Valley School District
POPE VALLEY — In Pope Valley, a tight-knit rural community where backyard cookouts once brought families together, carne asada gatherings have taken a sharp turn. These days, they’ve become impromptu strategy sessions for Latino parents fed up with what they describe as a hostile environment for their children and a school district whose leaders have failed to listen.
For months, families in Napa County’s smallest school district raised alarms, packing board meetings, demanding transparency and questioning decisions around staffing, curriculum and the lack of bilingual leadership. Their concerns prompted an eight-month investigation by the Napa County civil grand jury into the one-school Pope Valley Union Elementary School District, where more than 70% of students are Latino.
The grand jury’s report, released last month, validated several of those frustrations, citing “widespread issues with district leadership and school operations.” It also faulted the district for failing to ensure a safe learning environment, consistent instruction and even reliable transportation.
But the report also concluded there was “no evidence of discrimination or unequal treatment” by the administration toward Hispanic or Spanish-speaking families, a finding many parents reject.
Jurors did acknowledge that a historic lack of bilingual support contributed to deep communication gaps, leaving Spanish-speaking families feeling isolated and unheard.
The tiny Pope Valley district runs just one elementary school serving 53 students from kindergarten through eighth grade in a remote corner of northern Napa County.
A grand jury representative spoke at the Pope Valley district’s May 15 board meeting to present the report for families who may not have read it. The representative said they could not share details about the investigation, including who or how many people were interviewed.
Despite months of board meetings where parents voiced concerns, new complaints emerged again.
One mother, Claudia Ramirez, filed a complaint alleging bias and discrimination after waiting over two weeks for a response to her April 18 inquiry about transitional kindergarten registration for her 4-year-old daughter. In contrast, she said, her friend Lisa Dawson received a helpful reply just five hours after emailing the same request on April 29 — including a warm welcome and tour offer — while Ramirez was still waiting.
“Let’s look at the facts; I, a bilingual Latina parent, waited over two weeks. Lisa, with a non-Hispanic name, was quickly assisted and even offered a tour,” Ramirez told the board. “If I experienced this kind of delay, I can only imagine the barriers a Spanish-speaking parent might face.”
According to the grand jury report, Pope Valley Elementary School has faced persistent academic challenges, with little support for its most vulnerable students. Despite nearly half of its student body being English learners, the district has operated without bilingual educators, special education staff or consistent academic benchmarks, the report states.
Now, frustrated and disillusioned, some parents are trying to pull their children out of the Pope Valley school entirely.
“All we wanted was for our kids to learn and feel seen,” Maria Ambrocio, a mother of three, said through an interpreter. “Instead, they come home saying they aren’t learning anything. I once watched a teacher ignore the students, glued to her phone the whole after-school program. That’s when I knew I couldn’t trust the school with my children anymore.”
Ambrocio — one of several Pope Valley parents to pull her children from classes during one-week boycotts in March and April — is considering moving her children to the neighboring district of St. Helena, 12 miles south.
In the 2023–24 school year, less than one Pope Valley student in five met state expectations in English, and only about one in five passed in math, the grand jury report noted.
California has since flagged the school for underperformance and added it to the Williams Monitoring list for 2025–27, triggering increased state oversight.
The report also directs much of its criticism at past leadership, emphasizing how their failure to act allowed Benjamin Casas, a former employee later convicted of sexually abusing five minors, to remain at the school until 2019, three years before his arrest. That inaction, the report suggests, left a lasting wound on the community and continues to erode trust today.
While the grand jury report acknowledged ongoing problems, it offered a surprisingly hopeful assessment of the district’s current leadership. It credited Superintendent Kim Kern, who was appointed in 2023, with bringing a sense of stability and noted that the school board appears focused on turning things around.
But many see things differently. Fourteen families, representing nearly three-quarters of the student body, have since called for Kern’s resignation.
That disconnect has fueled deep frustration among parents, especially after two teachers, including the school’s only Spanish-speaking educator, were told in March they would not be retained after the current school year.
“The school is 80% Latino … and you’re taking away the only teacher who speaks Spanish,” Reina Lopez, a mom of three students at the school, said in Spanish.
Parents have also raised concerns about what they allege is favoritism in hiring. In 2023, the Pope Valley school brought on the daughter and granddaughter of board member David Daniels. Megan Daniels now oversees food services and after-school programming, while her daughter Rylee was hired as a special education aide, decisions that some families say reflect a troubling pattern of nepotism.
Former staff member Cindy Stapp, who worked at the school for 34 years, said the recent firings are damaging. “(It) feels like they’re trying to destroy it,” she said.
Stapp called for a new administrator and reinstating dismissed staff. “This new administration discourages parent involvement,” she said.
Kern said in an email she values dialogue and regrets the parent boycotts of this spring. “We remain committed to working together,” she said, noting efforts to recruit bilingual staff.
In search of answers, parents met last month with Napa County Superintendent of Schools Barbara Nemko, only to be told she has little power to directly intervene in the dispute.
“She listened to us but let us down when she said she couldn’t do much,” one parent said.
Nemko, who recently announced she will retire July 31 after 28 years as county superintendent, sent families a Uniform Complaint Procedure form and said she’d try to revisit the school before year’s end.
The Pope Valley school board must respond to the civil grand jury report within 90 days.
Kern hired two new teachers, including a bilingual instructor, set to start this fall.
Many parents, however, some speaking anonymously out of fear of retaliation, say they’ve lost all faith in the school and are actively transferring their children elsewhere.
It was not immediately clear how parents could attempt to move children to other districts outside of their designated open-enrollment periods. In the St. Helena Unified School District, for example, the window to enroll students for the 2025-26 year ran from Sept. 2 to Dec. 2 of last year, according to the district website.
With reports from California Local News Fellow Elsa Cavazos and Napa Valley Register city editor Howard Yune.
