From the beginning, the three conservative Temecula Valley Unified School District board members made their position clear. On the same night in December 2022 that they were sworn in as a majority, they passed a resolution banning critical race theory from classrooms in their Southern California district.
Months later, they abruptly fired the superintendent, saying they believed the district needed someone with new ideas. After that, they passed a rule requiring parents to be notified whenever a student asks to identify as a different gender at school.
The moves were applauded by conservatives, many of them Christian churchgoers who had helped install the new board members, hoping the Temecula Valley could remain an island of traditional values in a liberal state.
But this once-rural area, about 60 miles northeast of San Diego, had transformed in recent decades into a diverse bedroom community, and many other families were dismayed by what they saw as the unwelcome intrusion of national culture wars into their prized public schools.
That backlash came to a head this month when voters recalled Joseph Komrosky, a military veteran and community college professor who has been school board president since that December night. Mr Komrosky’s ouster was made official on Thursday night.
“People move here so they can put their kids in the school district,” said Jeff Pack, whose One Temecula Valley PAC led the recall effort. “They don’t want all this partisan political warfare, this culture warfare to get in the way.”
Across California, conservative board members elected as part of the same wave that swept Mr. Komrosky and his colleagues into office are facing similar recall efforts.
In March, two conservative Orange County board members were recalled for supporting policies similar to those enacted by the Temecula Valley Council. That same month, a trustee supported by a Moms for Liberty group in an area outside Sacramento was ousted after she called transgender identity “social transmission.” Next month, voters in a small district in the Bay Area will decide whether to remove two conservative board members.
There were no school board recalls on the California ballot last year, according to Joshua Spivak, a senior fellow at the California Constitutional Law Center in Berkeley, who closely tracks recalls nationwide. Similar-themed recalls against conservatives in California this year are unusual, he said, because in the past, most removal attempts stemmed from a specific local conflict.
“This is a pivotal issue that voters are very concerned about,” he said.
Temecula, like many inland California communities, has grown in recent decades by attracting a number of families fleeing cities closer to the coast. (In 1990, Temecula’s population was 27,099, according to census data. In 2023, it was about 110,700.)
The city is within commuting distance of northern San Diego County, home to major military installations and technology companies, as well as southern Orange County and Riverside. Separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Santa Ana Mountains, Temecula is a special destination for new parents looking for larger homes than they can find in more expensive coastal suburbs — without sacrificing access to top-tier public schools.
But the politics there are far from settled. The recall just passed, with 51% voting in favor of recalling Mr. Komrosky and 49% against. Only 212 votes out of 9,714 separated the two sides.
It was close enough that Mr. Komrosky said he would likely run for the seat again in November.
“My commitment to protecting the innocence of our children in Temecula schools remains unwavering,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Komrosky and two conservative colleagues were elected to the Temecula Valley Unified board in November 2022 amid a wave of efforts by like-minded groups to elect school board members across California. Many conservatives believed their resources were better spent trying to influence local schools to join a national “parents’ rights” movement than trying to elect legislators or statewide leaders in Democratic-dominated California.
Of the three Temecula Valley Unified board members up for election in 2022, only Jennifer Wiersma, who describes herself as a faith-motivated “parental rights advocate,” remains. the other conservative board member, Danny Gonzalez, resigned in December to move to Texas. His position is vacant.
Mr. Komrosky’s supporters and the board majority blamed the state’s political establishment and labor unions for his ouster. They said conservatives on school boards who sought to limit the teaching of LGBTQ history and add notification requirements to determine the gender of children did so to protect parents’ rights.
The conservative bloc in the Temecula Valley angered Democratic state leaders last year when they refused to approve a social studies curriculum that mentioned Harvey Milk, the slain gay rights pioneer — whom Mr. Komrosky had called a “pedophile.” They later reversed course after Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to fine the district $1.5 million.
“It’s sad and scary that good people are being targeted for standing up for parental involvement and common sense to improve our children’s education,” said Sonja Shaw, an outspoken conservative activist who leads the unified school district’s board. Chino Valley, not far from Temecula. . The Chino Valley district is currently in a legal battle against the state to defend its parental notification policy.
Leaders of the campaign to recall Mr. Komrosky said parents in Temecula — and across California — have long taken for granted that school boards generally focus on the menial work of maintaining school buildings, hiring strong teachers and ensuring the smooth operation of after school programs. . Now, many said the new board’s actions had put them back on notice.
Mr. Pack said he started One Temecula Valley PAC in 2022 to recruit candidates for nonpartisan local offices, including the Temecula City Council, where he felt newly elected officials were using their positions to make national political statements instead of focusing on in local government affairs. He cited a Temecula City Council member who tried to make the city a “sanctuary” for the unborn, even though abortion is legal in California and cities cannot ban the procedure.
He said he quickly found that ousting the school board members was a top priority for many parents, who felt the group, led by Mr. Komrosky, had racked up unnecessary legal bills and strayed from its mission of educating students.
In one recent case, the district agreed to pay $75,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by two residents whom Mr. Komrosky had removed from school board meetings because he said they were disruptive. Residents claimed it had violated their free speech rights. lawyers for one of them, Upneet Dhaliwal, said in a complaint that Mr. Komrosky claimed that challenging the superintendent’s hiring process was beside the point.
Ms. Dhaliwal, 42, moved from San Diego to Temecula in 2022 with her husband and daughter, who will be an eighth-grader in the district. When they were looking for a new community, Temecula fit their two main requirements: good schools and affordable housing.
Ms. Dhaliwal said she had never called her daughter’s teacher in San Diego, where “usually an email solved any problem.” But after seeing Temecula in the news for flouting the state’s social studies curriculum, he decided to attend the meeting where the board fired the superintendent. She was alarmed.
“I came home,” he said, “and recall seemed the only option.”
