Temecula Valley Unified School District is a school district located in the southwestern portion of Riverside County, California, serving the city of Temecula and unincorporated parts of nearby Murrieta and French Valley. It is the fourth-largest school district in Riverside County. The district's Board of Education elections take place in November of even-numbered years and elected members to serve four-year terms. The Board of Education is composed of five members, elected by geographical districts called Trustee Areas.
Curriculum
After a conservative majority were elected to the school board in November 2022, they passed a resolution banning the teaching of critical race theory.[3][4] In May 2023, the school board rejected social studies textbooks that had been approved by dozens of teachers and parents in a pilot program. The board was concerned that the proposed instructional material mentioned the LGBTQ+ community and Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who was assassinated in 1978. With the current textbook no longer being printed, classes would be short of books needed by teachers for their students.[5]
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced in July that the state is entering into a contract to secure textbooks for the district in time for the first day of school in August.[6] Joseph Komrosky, the school board president at the time, later used state fundings intended for the purchase of the new textbooks to fund his own political campaigns. In July 2023 the district's board of education decided to use the new textbook.[7] The district also instituted a parental notification policy that requires district staff to tell parents when their child is requesting to use a name that is different from their legal name or to be identified as a different gender, though this practice was later banned in July 2024 by California Governor Gavin Newsom.[8][9]
