Irvine Unified Education Board candidate Debra Kamm is a longtime education and health advocate and a champion of informed consent for parents.
When her son was born with a rare heart condition, the mother of two—who has one child in the district—co-founded California Heart Connection, a nonprofit that provides support for parents whose children have such conditions.
Through her nonprofit, Kamm said she became a strong supporter of informed consent for parents, conducted nationwide research on miscommunications between physicians and parents, and authored articles for medical research journals and textbooks.
“I’ve advocated for parents and kids for the last 20 years—so to me, this is really the same thing, just rather than in the medical community, it’s in education,” Kamm told The Epoch Times.
Kamm said she decided to run for the board because she thought the district lacked transparency when it came to public records on financials and litigation.
According to Kamm, she filed a discrimination complaint in February and experienced retaliation from the staff.
Soon after, she went to a school board meeting for the first time to alert the board about the retaliation. About a week later, she received notice from a district official that her emails were blocked to the board and staff.
She said she returned to the board again in May to address an issue related Irvine employee set to testify in a case for a school district in Temecula, but the president of the board threatened to ban her from speaking at future meetings, referencing a decades-old board policy that “prohibited criticism of employees.”
The board eventually removed that policy in June after the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the board—on Kamm’s behalf—claiming the policy was unconstitutional.
“[My candidacy] is the only opportunity for parental rights and transparency,” Kamm said, adding that she has also filed several public records requests for legal documents the district has filed against families of children with disabilities.
“Irvine has not been transparent,” Kamm said. “I’ve been trying to get their settlement agreements for a long time through public records. They are the only district that I know of that will not provide them as public records.”
According to Kamm, school districts like Irvine can sue parents if there is a dispute over what type of services a child with disabilities needs or they can just not provide the requested assistance, which can force a family to file suit.
“Parents are scared to death to speak up. At the very least, I can keep exposing some of the things that I’ve uncovered in Irvine while I’m a candidate, because this gives me a bigger platform, and hopefully other people will see that and will want change,” Kamm said.
If elected, Kamm said she would work to allow the public to speak remotely to the board during the public comment portion of its meetings, which the district currently does not allow.
She said allowing for remote or virtual comments would increase public participation and is inexpensive.
“Not everyone can drop everything to go to a meeting,” she said. “Not allowing remote participation shuts out the voices of many residents including parents with young children who don’t have child care, those who work in the evenings, the elderly, and those who are worried about exposure to illnesses. They are being excluded from giving public comments to their elected representatives.”
Kamm is running to represent Area 2—which covers the south side of Woodbridge, Westpark, and University Park. Her opponents are Irvine Unified parents Marlene Bronson and Katie McEwen.
