West Sonoma County Union High School District Board of Trustees

10 meetings on our record, 6 of them from the past year and 4 with unconfirmed dates · typical meeting 3 h 12 min · 1,568 students · 5 members on our roster

Latest · Sep 9, 2026: West Sonoma County board motion calls for appointment to fill trustee vacancy Play 2:10:14
Newest meeting we have: Sep 9, 2026 · District's board page ↗ (it may list later ones)

On the board: Lewis Buchner, Trustee - Vice President - Area 5 · Shawn Chernila, Board member · Jeanne Fernandes, Board member · Linda Helton, Board member · Rio Kuteira, Board member

Watch the board’s yearA decision it made, its hours, its busiest night at the mic and where its time went, each with its source

Recent meetings

What the board took up lately

Board meeting · 3 h 22 minWednesday, September 9, 2026West Sonoma County board motion calls for appointment to fill trustee vacancyBudget cuts and layoffsPhones in schoolSpeakers: Jeanne Fernandes, Lewis Buchner

Play 2:10:14

Board meeting · 3 h 30 minWednesday, August 19, 2026West Sonoma County board pulls consortium item from agenda; speakers raise stipend cutsSpeakers: Jeanne Fernandes, Lewis Buchner

Play 1:04:55

Board meeting · 3 h 06 minWednesday, June 24, 2026Budget cuts and layoffsEnrollmentPhones in schoolReading and test scoresSpeakers: Linda Helton, Jeanne Fernandes, Rio Kuteira, Lewis Buchner

Watch

Board meeting · 3 h 18 minWednesday, June 10, 2026Speakers: Linda Helton, Jeanne Fernandes

Watch

The board

Who talks on this board

Minutes speaking per full board meeting · 6 board meetings, Mar 4, 2026 – Sep 9, 2026 · talk time only, never tone or stance

Listed by seat6 board meetings on our record; we rank members seated for 8.

Coverage: about 82% of members’ speaking time named (39%–85%)

Minutes = time we heard them speak per meeting, from the speech we have named so far, so each is a floor: at least that much.

Runs the meeting

Jeanne FernandesBoard member · Trustee Area 3 · runs the meeting, not ranked11.6min, at least5 of 6meetings heard, of those while seated—runs the meeting, counted apart1.2questions asked per meeting, at least

Members · listed by seat

Shawn ChernilaBoard member · Trustee Area 1 · Seated for 6 board meetings on our record; we rank at 80.0min, at least0 of 6meetings heard, of those while seated—not ranked2.5questions asked per meeting, at least

Linda HeltonBoard member · Trustee Area 2 · Seated for 6 board meetings on our record; we rank at 80.7min, at least3 of 6meetings heard, of those while seated—not ranked0.8questions asked per meeting, at least

Rio KuteiraBoard member · Trustee Area 4 · Seated for 6 board meetings on our record; we rank at 80.3min, at least2 of 6meetings heard, of those while seated—not ranked0.5questions asked per meeting, at least

Lewis BuchnerTrustee - Vice President - Area 5 · Trustee Area 5 · Seated for 6 board meetings on our record; we rank at 82.0min, at least5 of 6meetings heard, of those while seated—not ranked1.6questions asked per meeting, at least

Minutes speaking per full board meeting held while seated; a meeting they missed or stayed silent in counts as zero · bar = minutes named so far · talk time only, never tone or stance · Hamlet

Meetings on our record

All 10 meetings on our record

Clips

What Lewis Buchner said

This is about, um, DEI, which now we're calling the Access and Belonging Committee. So we have a very active committee and real work is happening.Lewis BuchnerTrustee - Vice President - Area 5 · West Sonoma County Union High School District Board of TrusteesWatch the full meeting from 1:31:35

On the map · Phones in school

June 24, 2026

The board discussed phones in school.

Its first meeting on phones in the year we read; phones came up at 2 of its meetings. A faint dot on the map: we had read too few of its earlier meetings to call it new.

Watch the film Open the meeting

Meeting time

Where the board's meeting time went

Budget and finance11%5%–20%

Public comment5%0%–15%

Ceremony and recognition4%0%–11%

Safety and discipline1%0%–3%

The two readers didn’t agree on 39% of the time; it counts toward no topic, so every share above is a floor.

Not shown: facilities, closures and enrollment, curriculum and instruction, student services and special education, labor and personnel, governance and policy, routine business, other subjects, whose checks haven’t passed

Public comment

Of the 10 meetings on our record, we counted public speakers at 9; 8 had at least one. The busiest, on Aug 19, 2026, heard from 26.

26 on Aug 19, 202626 speakers13 speakers6.4 a meeting on average

Federal district ID 0602670 · student count from the federal 2023-24 count · meeting videos posted by the district