A Temecula group is looking to recall three school board members amid controversy surrounding their conservative stance on critical race theory and LGBT content in classrooms—as well as their recent decision to fire the district’s superintendent.
One Temecula Valley, a local political action committee, gathered the required number of signatures—30 from each trustee’s district—on June 12 to initiate a formal petition to recall Temecula Valley Unified Board President Joseph Komrosky as well as Trustees Danny Gonzalez and Jennifer Wiersma, all of whom were elected in December.
Committee member Jeff Pack said the trustees’ controversial actions are causing some teachers and principals to announce their intent to leave the district.
“[The trustees’ actions] have created instability and chaos in the district,” Pack told The Epoch Times. “We want to make Temecula boring again.”
Pack said he felt that despite the board members’ elections, their actions did not represent the whole community—only their supporters.
One Temecula Valley Unified parent, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she supported the recall petition because she thought the board was becoming too engaged in political battles to focus on students.
“I feel like the board members are kind of in this role to start controversy rather than backing what’s best for our kids,” the parent told The Epoch Times. “I scanned through the social studies books in question, and I didn’t see any issues with them. I don’t know why [the board] voted them down.”
But other parents say they’re grateful to the current board members for standing up for parents’ rights.
“These current board members were elected because parents were completely unsatisfied with the board members of the past two years,” district parent Stephanie Dawson told The Epoch Times. “We felt they didn’t listen to our concerns and that they belittled us for how we felt.”
Dawson said she thought the recall group’s desire to “make Temecula boring again” meant they wanted to keep the district’s standards low.
“With the new board members, we voted them in because, during the pandemic, parents started to pay attention to what was wrong with the district and what was wrong with the leadership,” she said. “That’s why we elected them to get on there and make those changes. Unfortunately, they are big changes, and they’re changes that the other side is not happy with. But this is what the majority of us parents wanted.”
“I would express the same sentiments [against] any [such] adult being [featured] in K–5 textbooks,” he said.
Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta released a joint statement on June 7 demanding the board provide information regarding its process for rejecting the curriculum.
The debate centers around a book called “Social Studies Alive,” a textbook recently piloted in district schools that was brought before the board for official approval at a board meeting in May.
While the textbook does not mention Milk in its main text, its optional supplemental material features him.
Komrosky, along with Gonzalez and Trustee Jennifer Wiersma, voted against the book’s adoption, while Trustees Allison Barclay and Steven Schwarz voted in its favor.
