A conservative Temecula public school board president who pushed for racial and gender policies that thrust the district into a national battle over critical race theory and LGBTQ+ student rights in the classroom narrowly lost a recall vote Thursday. defeat.
Joseph Komrosky, a philosophy professor at Mt. San Antonio College, was elected to the board of trustees of the 28,000-student Temecula Valley Unified School District about 19 months ago. As part of a three-person conservative majority, he led the district as it joined a nationwide wave of school boards diving headfirst into the culture wars.
The school district banned the teaching of critical race theory and required parents to be notified and subsequently prosecuted if their child’s gender did not match the sex assigned at birth. Litigation is ongoing. Under Komlowski, the district banned non-U.S. and non-California flags, a move seen as targeting LGBTQ+ pride flag displays. He also sparked controversy when he described gay civil rights activist and San Francisco County Supervisor Harvey Milk as a “pedophile” at a school board meeting last year.
Final results from Komlowski’s recall election showed voters representing the eastern and central parts of the district narrowly opposed his remaining in office.
Of the 9,722 votes counted since June 4, the total number of votes cast in favor of recall was 4,963. 4,751 people opposed the recall.
Just under half (45.1%) of the 21,578 registered voters turned out to vote.
The recall ends a 2-2 deadlock on the board that began when Komlowski ally Danny Gonzalez resigned in December to move out of state. The board will not have all five members until the November election.
Komlowski, who described himself as a “God-fearing patriot” in an email to The Times on Thursday, said he would be inclined to run for the seat again.
“Given the slim margin, I will probably run again in the November 2024 election,” Komlowski said.
“If not, it has been an honor to serve the Temecula community and I am proud to fulfill all of my campaign promises as an elected official. My commitment to protecting the innocence of our children remains unwavering.
The message echoed what Komlowski said at the end of the last school board meeting on June 11. “I want to thank my community for allowing me to represent your voice, and I look forward to serving my community again starting in November,” he said.
The results announced on Thursday were both cheering and lamentable.
“We did it! We did it! Monica La Combe has lived in the area for 21 years and her children graduated from Temecula Valley High School. One son graduated this year , another non-binary kid graduating in 2022.
“It’s crazy that this board came out and did what they did. They came in and scared everyone and made our community look very, very bad in terms of who we are and how our children are educated,” LaComb said. . “This recall election is important to getting our district back on track.
“We have conservatives and liberals,” she added of the board, “but their approach is very extreme.”
Jason Craig, a parent of two elementary-school-age boys in the district, expressed disappointment with Thursday’s election results.
“Conservative parents don’t want our children to be taught to be social justice warriors. The school district is not that place,” Craig said. He had volunteered for Komlowski’s campaign after narrowly losing his own bid for the board.
Craig said he supports Komlowski’s policy as a “preemptive” way to prevent what he sees as growing social ills, such as critical race theory, from entering classrooms.
“We don’t want racism in schools to become the central focus of who everyone is and how we should teach history,” he said.
The Temecula School District is one of several in Southern California where LGBTQ+ identity and history have been at the center of controversy.
The Chino Valley Unified School District has also been sued over a parent notification policy similar to one adopted by the Temecula School District. California Attorney. Gen. Rob Bonta took the Chino district to court, and a group of parents, students, individual teachers and the teachers union sued Temecula Unified.
In the Chino Valley case, the judge held in a preliminary ruling that the notification requirement was unlawful. The district’s school board later approved a revised policy, hoping it would pass legal muster while having the same effect as the original version.
Meanwhile, another judge upheld Temecula’s parental notification policy. The decision is being appealed.
