A Silicon Valley college district introduced this week that it was pausing a contract price tens of hundreds of {dollars} with an “power healer” who was offering meditation classes for directors after mother and father protested over what they noticed as a budgetary extravagance.
Mountain View Whisman Faculty District made the choice at a gathering of the Board of Trustees on Thursday after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the 4,500-student Okay-8 district was paying $189,000 in alternate for 160 meditation classes to power healer Alycia Diggs-Chavis.
The district’s superintendent Dr. Ayindé Rudolph instructed the trustees and fogeys that they determined to pause work with Diggs-Chavis and her firm Blue Violet Vitality after she completes her present contract.
Diggs-Chavis described herself on her web site as a “grasp power healer” who “makes use of Sacred Geometry and Sound Therapeutic to efficiently change lives.”
At Thursday night time’s assembly, Rudolph tried to downplay the non secular nature of Diggs-Chavis’ work, saying that the contract was for stress-related meditation, so far as he knew. Diggs-Chavis didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
“Within the meditation we concentrate on how will we recenter ourselves so we’re capable of preserve going. It’s not about power or rocks,” Rudolph instructed trustees.
A number of the trustees had been shocked by the Chronicle article and the pricey contract with Diggs-Chavis.
“I used to be greatly surprised. I used to be shocked by [Diggs-Chavis’] web site… simply as I wouldn’t put money into a chaplain for the college district, I wouldn’t put money into sound and power therapeutic,” stated Devon Conley, the president of the Board of Trustees.
Some defended the work the power healer had executed.
“Alycia is definitely my coach. A number of years in the past I used to be on the verge of quitting due to the stress administration,” stated Principal Vern Taylor who works at Jose Antonio Vargas Elementary college. “I used to be on the verge of quitting, and assembly along with her and having her coach me by some methods I might use for wellness however then additionally some management methods was truly very helpful… I perceive that it’s some huge cash for our district to spend on leaders however I do suppose that it’s a useful useful resource and it has helped me personally get by some very troublesome occasions over the previous few years.”
The frustration over the contract with Diggs-Chavis got here amid different budgetary points within the district that suffers from a big achievement hole. Along with the Diggs-Chavis contract, mother and father additionally had been pissed off a couple of contract with a D.C. public relations agency for greater than $180,000 a yr in addition to an in-house public data custodian who’s paid greater than $200,000 a yr.
“I don’t suppose the mother and father are comfortable. I don’t suppose the academics are comfortable and I’m positive the taxpayers aren’t comfortable about it,” stated one father or mother on the Thursday night time assembly.
