A conservative public faculty board president in Temecula whose promotion of insurance policies on race and gender thrust the district into the nationwide battle over vital race concept within the classroom and the rights of LGBTQ+ college students narrowly misplaced a recall vote, officers introduced Thursday.
Joseph Komrosky, a Mt. San Antonio School philosophy professor, was elected to the board of the 28,000-student Temecula Valley Unified Faculty District about 19 months in the past. As a part of a three-member conservative majority, he steered the district because it joined a nationwide wave of faculty boards leaping head-first into the tradition wars.
The district was sued after banning the instructing of vital race concept and requiring that folks be notified if their kids recognized as a gender that didn’t match the one assigned to them at delivery. The litigation is ongoing. Beneath Komrosky, the district banned non-U.S. and non-California flags, a transfer seen as focusing on LGBTQ+ Delight flag shows. At a faculty board assembly final 12 months, he additionally stirred controversy when he described homosexual civil rights pioneer and San Francisco County Supervisor Harvey Milk as a “pedophile.”
The ultimate ends in the recall election discovered voters narrowly opposed Komrosky, who represented the japanese and central parts of the district, staying in workplace.
Of 9,722 ballots tallied since June 4, these in favor of recall totaled 4,963. There have been 4,751 against the recall.
Fewer than half of the 21,578 registered voters — 45.1% — voted.
The recall ends a 2-2 stalemate on the board since a Komrosky ally, Danny Gonzalez, resigned in December to maneuver out of state. The board is not going to have its full 5 members till the election in November.
In a Thursday electronic mail to The Occasions, Komrosky, who in his X bio calls himself a “God-fearing patriot,” stated he leaned towards operating for a seat as soon as extra.
“Given the narrow margin, I will likely run again in the November 2024 general election,” Komrosky stated.
“If not, it has been an honor to serve the Temecula community, and I am proud to have fulfilled all of my campaign promises as an elected official. My commitment to protecting the innocence of our children remains unwavering,” he stated.
The message echoed one Komrosky gave on the finish of the final faculty board assembly on June 11. Throughout that assembly, nevertheless, he appeared extra adamant about operating once more. “I want to thank my community for allowing me to represent your voices, and I look forward to serving my community again, beginning in November,” he stated.
Thursday’s introduced outcome was celebrated and lamented.
“We did it! We did it!” stated Monica La Combe, a district resident for 21 years whose kids graduated from highschool in Temecula Valley. A son graduated this 12 months, and one other little one, who’s nonbinary, graduated in 2022.
“What this board came in and did was was crazy. They just came in and made everybody scared and made our community look really, really bad with respect to who we are and how our children are educated,” La Combe stated. “This recall election was important in order to get our district back on the trajectory of progress that we were headed toward.
“We have conservatives and liberals,” she added, talking of the board, “but what they were doing was just really extreme.”
Jason Craig, a mum or dad of two boys who attend elementary faculty within the district, expressed disappointment in Thursday’s election outcome.
“Conservative parents don’t want our children to be taught as social justice warriors. The school district isn’t the place for that,” stated Craig, who had volunteered for Komrosky’s marketing campaign and beforehand narrowly misplaced in his personal run for the board.
Craig stated he supported Komrosky’s insurance policies as “preemptive” methods to maintain what he noticed as rising social ills making their method into lecture rooms, together with vital race concept, an educational authorized framework referring to institutional racism taught at some faculties and universities.
“We don’t want racism in schools to be the center focus of everyone’s identity and how we should proceed with teaching history,” he stated.
The Temecula district is considered one of a number of Southern California faculty districts the place LGBTQ+ id and historical past have develop into main factors of controversy.
The Chino Valley Unified Faculty District can be being sued for a parental notification coverage much like the one handed within the Temecula district. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta took the Chino district to courtroom, and a bunch of oldsters, college students, particular person academics and the academics union sued Temecula Valley Unified.
Within the Chino Valley case, the choose in a preliminary ruling discovered the notification requirement to be unlawful. The district’s faculty board subsequently accredited a revised coverage with the hope that it’ll cross authorized muster whereas having the identical impact as the unique model.
In the meantime, a unique choose upheld the Temecula parental notification coverage. That call is being appealed.
