TEMECULA, Calif. – A Southern California school board has become the latest proxy for the culture wars raging across the country after a conservative bloc voted to formally reject state-backed curriculum that he would have mentioned gay rights figure Harvey Milk.
On Tuesday, a heated Temecula Valley Unified School District board meeting broke up in shouting and booing as parents, teachers and community members clashed with one another over a three-paragraph mention of Milk in student supplemental materials. from first to fifth grade.
At least three people were thrown out of the five-hour hearing and escorted out by law enforcement officers. In the parking lot, stickers in support of the far-right group Proud Boys mysteriously appeared on several cars.
The school district controversy erupted in May when conservative school board members first rejected mention of Milk.
Gov. Gavin Newsom responded weeks later, saying the state will purchase the learning materials that include a brief biography of the San Francisco civic leader.
“Cancel culture has gone too far in Temecula: Radical fanatics on the school board rejected a textbook used by hundreds of thousands of students and now kids will start the school year without the tools they need to learn,” Newsom said in a statement. recent statement.
Temecula school board president Joseph Komrosky, who has called Milk a «pedophile,» said he has instructed the district to reject any materials sent from the state.
California law requires that public school districts have enough textbooks for each student and that social studies curricula provide information about the roles that Americans of diverse origins have played in shaping history. The school board has not approved replacement learning materials after rejecting state-backed curricula.
Turning school boards into surrogates for broader culture war battles is part of a familiar playbook implemented by conservative groups, which have focused on filling school boards with ideologically aligned members and recorded dozens of victories last fall.
In June, tempers flared outside a Glendale Unified School District board meeting in nearby Los Angeles County as members met to pass a measure recognizing Pride Month, something it has done for years.
Now, local conservatives see an opportunity to win more seats in places like Temecula and surrounding communities.
“California and the nation are watching this school board,” Tracy Henderson, founder of the conservative California Parents Union, told the Temecula school board Tuesday. «You have to hold your ground.»
But several parents and teachers are pushing to remove three school board members who led the crusade against the state-backed curriculum just six months after they took office.
“The social conversation that’s going on right now is just noise,” said Skylar Tempel, a Temecula resident and organizer of the recall effort. “This is turning our nonpartisan school board into a partisan platform.”
Tempel, a lifelong Temecula resident who attended the school district in his youth, said the ongoing controversy is bringing unwanted attention to the otherwise quiet community. He seeks a return to the California model of conservatism popular decades ago, which preached fiscal responsibility but shunned social issues.
Board member Steven Schwartz, a retired educator with more than 40 years of teaching experience, said he’s never seen anything like the uproar that has gripped meetings in recent months.
«I really don’t want to get to the point where someone walks in and says [President] Lincoln was not a good guy because slavery didn’t end soon enough,» he said. «History is history.»
Like many communities in the US, Temecula residents engaged in culture wars during the pandemic after California officials implemented mask and vaccination mandates. Suddenly, mundane school board meetings turned into showdowns over whether students and parents should be forced to follow state health guidelines.
Groups like the conservative Inland Empire Family PAC, which has ties to a local evangelical church, sprang up and endorsed conservative school board members across the region, including in the Temecula Valley. The three PAC-backed conservative candidates were elected to the Temecula school board, and soon the three members banned the teaching of critical race theory and ousted the superintendent.
Now, those same board members have rejected supplementary materials for elementary students that mention Milk.
Proponents of the ban say Milk was a sexual predator, referring to a controversial claim that the gay rights icon had an inappropriate relationship with a minor. Opponents say changing the curriculum four weeks before school starts would unnecessarily create problems for teachers’ lesson plans.
The state attorney general has ordered the school district to provide information about its decision-making related to its rejection of the social studies curriculum for grades one through five.
Gia Rueda, a Temecula resident with two high school-age children in the school district, called the three conservative school board members “gods of chaos” who are drawing unnecessary attention to the community.
“The curriculum has already been vetted, tested and approved by an overwhelming majority of real TVUSD parents and teachers, so stop wasting money on chaotic political games and fanning the fires of culture wars,” he said. «This should never have been a problem.»
But Tim Thompson, founder of the Inland Empire Family Pac and evangelical pastor of 412 Church Temecula Valley, who hosted US Representative Majorie Taylor Greene in 2021 said that Milk «is not someone to be celebrated.»
In Sacramento, Newsom and state education chief Tony Thurmond are backing a bill that targets school districts that refuse to adopt a state-endorsed curriculum. The bill would fine districts for failing to provide textbooks that align with state standards, including learning materials that teach «inclusive and diverse perspectives.»