In a hastily called meeting lasting until almost midnight, Temecula’s school board late Friday night, July 21, approved a new elementary school social studies curriculum that it twice rejected and by doing so drew Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ire after some board members disparaged LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk.
The Temecula Valley Unified School District board voted 4-0 — Danny Gonzalez, part of the board’s conservative majority, was absent — in a special meeting to consider adopting the TCI Social Studies Alive! curriculum for first- through fifth-graders.
In a compromise, board members agreed to postpone one of the curriculum’s fourth-grade lessons so it could be reviewed further. Board conservatives had concerns about whether the lesson was appropriate for fourth graders.
In a statement issued after the board’s vote, Newsom said: “Fortunately, now students will receive the basic materials needed to learn.
“But this vote lays bare the true motives of those who opposed this curriculum,” the governor said. This has never been about parents’ rights. It’s not even about Harvey Milk – who appears nowhere in the textbook students receive. This is about extremists’ desire to control information and censor the materials used to teach our children.”
Newsom added: “Demagogues who whitewash history, censor books, and perpetuate prejudice never succeed. Hate doesn’t belong in our classrooms and because of the board majority’s antics, Temecula has a civil rights investigation to answer for.”
The Temecula school district is currently being investigated by the state education department.
Board president Joseph Komrosky, part of the conservative bloc, made the motion ultimately approved by the board. He suggested replacing the fourth-grade lesson with something “consistent with this board’s commitment to exclude sexualized topics of instruction from the elementary school grade levels,” according to a report to the board submitted by Komrosky.
Instead of approving the TCI curriculum, Jen Wiersma, the third member of the conservative majority, wanted to buy additional books from the district’s existing, 17-year-old, elementary social studies curriculum and online supplements from 2019 that she said complied with state law and educational frameworks.
“This is a short-term resolution for (the) school year,” Wiersma wrote in a report to the board. “It is fiscally responsible and allows for additional time in choosing a long term curriculum for adoption while working through strategic policies prior to implementation.”
But a school district attorney, responding to Komrosky’s question, said that legally, the board couldn’t move forward with Wiersma’s proposal because it would violate California education code. The code requires “substantial teacher involvement in the selection of instructional materials” as well as that of parents and the community.
The existing curriculum also violates state law and education standards, district officials said.
Wiersma made a motion to enact her proposal, but it died when no one seconded it.
Komrosky said he thought the district had a curriculum in place when the board rejected the TCI curriculum at its regular meeting Tuesday, July 18. That’s not the case, he said Friday, adding that the district risked a lawsuit if it didn’t adopt a curriculum, as school is set to start in mid-August.
“We have a fiscal responsibility so that I cannot steer this district into more legalities,” he said. “I will not.”
If any “vulgarity, profanity, obscenity, erotica” or other objectionable material is later found in the curriculum, “we can pull the e-brake,” Komrosky added.
Opponents of the TCI curriculum urged the board to reject it and defy Newsom.
“Thank you for exposing evil when you found it,” Jessica Tapia said. “Now don’t let the devil … convince you to go backwards.”
Others criticized the board for failing to adopt a new curriculum.
Friday’s meeting, like Tuesday’s, lasted more than three hours and featured a packed house, dozens of public speakers and a heated and raucous atmosphere at times.
“I’m telling you right now, audience, you’re going out to the parking lot,” Komrosky warned after a speaker was heckled mid-sentence. He did not clear the room.
Friday’s vote marked a new turn in the escalating controversy pitting the board’s conservative bloc against Newsom and Sacramento’s Democratic leadership.
In May, Komrosky, Gonzalez and Wiersma, elected in November with the backing of a Christian conservative political action committee, voted to reject the curriculum, which district officials said had been piloted by 47 teachers and more than 1,300 families.
The curriculum’s supplemental materials mention Milk, an LGBTQ civil rights leader and San Francisco supervisor who was murdered in 1978. At the board’s May meeting, Komrosky and Gonzalez both called Milk a pedophile.
Komrosky’s pedophile comment was “an ignorant statement from an ignorant person,” Newsom, a liberal Democrat who issued same-sex marriage licenses as San Francisco’s mayor in 2004 in defiance of a state ban at the time, tweeted in June.
Responding to the governor’s tweet, Komrosky he wasn’t referring to Milk’s sexuality, but to his intimate relationship as an adult with a teenage boy, one chronicled in a Milk biography.
On Tuesday, Gonzalez and Wiersma cited other reasons beyond Milk for opposing the TCI curriculum. Gonzalez said there wasn’t enough parental involvement in reviewing the curriculum while Wiersma said she was concerned about the curriculum’s over-emphasis on “social issues.”
The board’s critics argue the majority want to exclude any mention of LGBTQ Americans or their contributions to history. On June 13, Newsom warned the board that if it didn’t approve the new curriculum, he’d send textbooks to Temecula; he doubled down on that promise Wednesday, July 19.
The governor also supports legislation that could fine the district $1.5 million for not having the proper educational materials.
Komrosky continued to strike a defiant tone toward Newsom on Friday.
“I am a sovereign citizen of the United States of America. I was voted in as a trustee,” Komrosky said, addressing the governor. “I will make my decisions. I don’t care what you do at the state level.”
Komrosky added: “Our kids need an education. They need a curriculum … we have to provide it.”
Conservatives have rallied to the board majority’s cause. Wiersma appeared on Fox News this week to discuss the governor’s proposed $1.5 million fine, while Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Bonsall, who represents Temecula, issued a news release saying he “stand(s) with the parents of Temecula” and Newsom’s “bullying won’t work here.”
Source: Orange County Register
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