The California Department of Pesticide Regulation held a public hearing Jan. 16 at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas to address a new draft regulation for Telone, a pesticide also known by the chemical name 1,3-dichloropropene.

Protesters say the regulations proposed by the DPR allow 14 times more of the pesticide than is recommended by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

The department’s recommended level is the same as the pesticide’s manufacturer, Dow Chemical.

Telone is a cancer-causing fumigant that is banned in 40 countries, but is the third most-used pesticide in California.

Dozens of community members—including scores of area farmworkers—took turns speaking out against the use of 1,3-D, citing a host of health problems stemming from the fumigant’s use.

“There is no question that 1,3-D is a carcinogen,” said Antonio Velasco, a family physician who has studied  protocols for treating pesticide-poisoning victims. “My question to you is, ‘Why do you continue to use it?’”

At one point the event was interrupted by more than a dozen protesters surrounding the podium in a mock “die-in,” while others unfurled large bilingual banners saying “DPR is racist!” and the crowd of over 100 chanted “DPR, you can’t hide; we can see your racist side.” 

“It’s good that DPR is finally using the OEHHA findings for some. But why not all?” said Mark Weller of Californians for Pesticide Reform. “It is not scientific to say that children—and we’re talking about mostly Latino children here—have a different lifetime cancer risk tolerance than adults.”

The hazard assessment office in 2022 issued a Prop 65 safe harbor level—the maximum exposure amount determined to be safe—for 1,3-D that converts to a daily air concentration of 0.04 parts per billion. The 1,3-D air concentrations at the six active state pesticide air-monitors, including those in Pajaro, Santa Maria and Oxnard, have exceeded the office’s lifetime cancer risk level since testing started in 2011.

“While much of the world is banning 1,3-D, California is going in the wrong direction,” said Safe Ag Safe Schools organizer Yanely Martinez. “Our regulators must follow health protective science, but DPR’s policies ignore the science in favor of protecting Dow Chemical’s profits. They should be protecting our health. This is a racist policy.”

Woody Rehanek of Watsonville, also a member of Safe Ag Safe Schools, said that there are 50 farms, nurseries, and greenhouses within a quarter-mile of many PVUSD schools.

“The strawberry and raspberry growers among them are applying drift-prone 1,3-D, a carcinogen and toxic air contaminant banned in 34 countries. This is a significant public health hazard for local children, school staff, residents, and farmworkers,” he said.

After a meeting that began Jan. 15 evening and stretched into the early-morning hours of the next day, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees agreed to cut more than $5 million from the budget including mental health workers and assistant principals.

The first round includes $750,000 from the District Office and $600,000 from academic coordinator positions, also called assistant principals. It also included $1.3 million from elementary school release positions, the teachers who fill in while other teachers are doing paperwork or prep.

That passed 5-1, with Trustee Gabriel Medina dissenting. The Trustee Area 1 seat formerly occupied by Kim De Serpa has not yet been filled.

The trustees made $500,000 cuts to intervention teachers, mental health clinicians and socio-emotional counselors. It passed 4-2, with Medina and Trustee Jessica Carrasco dissenting.

The need for the cuts comes from the loss of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, which the state provided during the Covid-19 pandemic to help students with issues related to online instruction.

Those dollars are sunsetting this year, and PVUSD must now “right-size” after using the one-time funds to pay for ongoing expenses such as hiring new staff.

PVUSD Superintendent Heather Contreras warned that waiting to make the cuts—or failing to make them—would force the district to deficit spend, and face possible eventual state takeover if the budget picture worsens.

It would also make future reductions more difficult, as the district is predicted to lose $10 million next year due to declining enrollment, Contreras said.

“Reducing the budget by cutting essential services like social-emotional support is shortsighted, and will cost us more in the long run,” said Medina. “Failing to invest in these critical programs now means we risk higher expenses later as we address the long-term effects of untreated bullying, anxiety and depression.”

Students are recovering from the 2023 floods, he said, which compounds the challenges they already face. “Without adequate support, we risk higher dropout rates, decreased attendance and increased disciplinary issues—all of which carry significant financial consequences for our district. We must prioritize the well-being of our students to build a stronger future for both them and our community.”

Carrasco agreed.

“I can’t vote for these choices, because I ran a campaign on empowering students, and I don’t see these choices doing that,” she said.

It is unclear how many positions will now have to be cut. Contreras said that district officials will bring a resolution to the board at either the Feb. 12 or March 5 meeting.

Contreras said that the district hopes to offset reductions to mental health services by looking to other agencies that provide similar services through their own grants.

Still, dozens of people addressed the board, most of them expressing concern that the loss of mental health clinicians and socio-emotional counselors will have a dire effect on students.

“Cutting funding to mental health will absolutely put our students’ lives at risk,” said Watsonville High School history teacher Bobby Pelz. 

Instead, Pelz said, the district should cut the School Resource Officer program, which places armed law enforcement officers on campuses with a mental health clinician.

“I think it sends the wrong message that we would rather invest in control than invest in support,” he said. 

Aptos High School senior Corbin Joao Bettencourt urged the board not to cut mental health services, predicting that the need for such services will likely increase as the conservative-leaning government increasingly attacks the LGBTQ community.

“As someone who has had depression and nearly tried suicide, I find it insulting, disrespectful and infuriating that you would even suggest taking away mental health services from my school and those who need it,” he said. “The mental health professionals at my school helped me a lot. In fact, if not for them I would be dead.”

Renaissance High junior Yareli Garcia agreed, saying that her school’s clinician helped her with her own struggles.

“Mental health clinicians have to be here for me, for our students and for many other people in our future,” she said.

Socio-emotional counselor Christina Souza said she was excited to come to the district when she learned of its focus on mental health services for students.

She says cutting the services will affect many aspects of their lives, asserting that “research is overpowering” on the impacts a social and emotional learning) program has on “academics, on college-going, on test scores. … It goes on and on. If a student is not well, they cannot learn; if they don’t feel safe, they cannot learn; if they don’t have a person, a community, somebody at the school they know will be there for them, they can’t learn.”

Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers President Nelly Vaquera-Boggs joined many in the room who said that the nearly $2 million that goes to Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance would be better spent with the district’s own mental health professionals.

“This district is deciding to make these austerity measures on the backs of our students,” she said. “PVPSA doesn’t serve all our students.”