First contact was a good step in the right direction

A great initial interaction with Cole Valley and lots of common ground to build on (updates below)

Mark and I made our first contact with Cole Valley tonight.

We had dinner with Matt Beglinger (current vice principal) and Brad Carr (previous superintendent). These were two of our previous basketball coaches, and I’ve had very tight friendships with both in the past.

But, a lot has happened. A lot has been said since the original post. Going into this, we weren’t sure what would happen, but we hoped for the best.

Immediately after seeing each other, we got big grins and hugged.

It was great to see them. A bit of ice was broken right there in the parking lot, but things remained somewhat tense for a while longer. We did some small talk and ordered our food.

When the food came out, we got into it. “So…”

We started off by sharing initial reactions to things that had happened, admitted that we weren’t totally sure about the motivations on both sides, and finally settled into talking about the issues.

We totally agreed on the problems.

All of us agreed that it’s not okay that people were and are hurting, or traumatized, and Cole Valley needs to listen and learn from this. They mentioned that, though the initial messages felt personal and gut reactions were defensive, feelings over time were more of compassion and empathy.

And their initial reactions to our proposed solutions were positive.

In fact, I was surprised to hear Matt and Brad say that they’d personally been bothered by many of these issues already, and they’ve been working to implement improvements for years.

I could actually hear the frustration in their voices. Not at us, but at the un-satisfyingly slow progress due to all the obstacles and stakeholders. At one point, Brad mentioned feeling disappointed that he couldn’t change more during his 11 year tenure.

And tears were shed. “I would never want any of those kids to be hurt.”

They care. Deeply. And they feel personal responsibility for hurts and mistakes that happened on their watch. Though they mentioned that it’s often complicated, and reports aren’t always the whole story, they always wanted to keep kids safe, and tried to do the right things.

They aren’t nefarious. Their hearts are in the right place.

I truly believe that.

And, when we mentioned the Joint Statement, their eyes lit up.

I explained what’s in it, all the work that we put into it, and what our goal was. Matt mentioned that this is basically what he planned to request from us as next steps, so he was thrilled. He even said, “This actually sounds pretty ground-breaking.” 🙌

We ended at a great spot. We can work together.

Next steps are Matt and Brad reading the joint statement. And I offered video interviews. And we offered to come to Cole Valley to meet with the leadership team. And we even speculated about what a future, bigger-picture collaboration might look like — a committee of alumni, parents, staff, and pastors working together on improvements (got the idea from my dad’s interview).

They are energized.

Brad even said that it’s making him wish he was still in charge at Cole Valley, so he could aggressively work on changes with us. That felt so good to hear.

There’s hope. Both sides were reassured. Can’t wait to move forward.

Update (March 15, 2:31pm): Reactions to this post in the support group have been mixed. Many seem really encouraged by my articulation of the meeting, but many others feel very upset by the tone, and feel I didn’t come down on them nearly hard enough. The fact is that people still feel serious pain, and this is very complex. Balancing cooperation on solutions for the future and accounting for the injustices of the past seems like a significant challenge, and we need as much help figuring this out as we can get.