A conservative public college board president in Temecula whose promotion of insurance policies on race and gender thrust the district into the nationwide battle over vital race principle within the classroom and the rights of LGBTQ+ college students narrowly misplaced a recall vote, officers introduced Thursday.
Joseph Komrosky, a Mt. San Antonio Faculty 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 college boards leaping head-first into the tradition wars.
The district was sued after banning the instructing of vital race principle and requiring that folks be notified if their kids recognized as a gender that didn’t match the one assigned to them at start. The litigation is ongoing. Below Komrosky, the district banned non-U.S. and non-California flags, a transfer seen as concentrating on LGBTQ+ Satisfaction 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 outcomes within 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 e mail to The Occasions, Komrosky, who in his X bio calls himself a “God-fearing patriot,” mentioned he leaned towards operating for a seat as soon as extra.
“Given the slim margin, I’ll probably run once more within the November 2024 basic election,” Komrosky mentioned.
“If not, it has been an honor to serve the Temecula neighborhood, and I’m proud to have fulfilled all of my marketing campaign guarantees as an elected official. My dedication to defending the innocence of our youngsters stays unwavering,” he mentioned.
The message echoed one Komrosky gave on the finish of the final college board assembly on June 11. Throughout that assembly, nonetheless, he appeared extra adamant about operating once more. “I need to thank my neighborhood for permitting me to characterize your voices, and I sit up for serving my neighborhood once more, starting in November,” he mentioned.
Thursday’s introduced end result was celebrated and lamented.
“We did it! We did it!” mentioned 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 youngster, who’s nonbinary, graduated in 2022.
“What this board got here in and did was was loopy. They only got here in and made everyone scared and made our neighborhood look actually, actually unhealthy with respect to who we’re and the way our youngsters are educated,” La Combe mentioned. “This recall election was necessary as a way to get our district again on the trajectory of progress that we had been headed towards.
“We’ve got conservatives and liberals,” she added, talking of the board, “however what they had been doing was simply actually excessive.”
Jason Craig, a mum or dad of two boys who attend elementary college within the district, expressed disappointment in Thursday’s election end result.
“Conservative mother and father don’t need our youngsters to be taught as social justice warriors. The varsity district isn’t the place for that,” mentioned Craig, who had volunteered for Komrosky’s marketing campaign and beforehand narrowly misplaced in his personal run for the board.
Craig mentioned he supported Komrosky’s insurance policies as “preemptive” methods to maintain what he noticed as rising social ills making their means into lecture rooms, together with vital race principle, an educational authorized framework referring to institutional racism taught at some schools and universities.
“We don’t need racism in faculties to be the middle focus of everybody’s identification and the way we must always proceed with instructing historical past,” he mentioned.
The Temecula district is one in every of a number of Southern California college districts the place LGBTQ+ identification and historical past have change into main factors of controversy.
The Chino Valley Unified Faculty District can also 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 court docket, and a gaggle of fogeys, college students, particular person lecturers and the lecturers union sued Temecula Valley Unified.
Within the Chino Valley case, the decide in a preliminary ruling discovered the notification requirement to be unlawful. The district’s college board subsequently authorized a revised coverage with the hope that it’ll go authorized muster whereas having the identical impact as the unique model.
In the meantime, a distinct decide upheld the Temecula parental notification coverage. That call is being appealed.
