Tyrant Gavin Newsom To Force Harvey Milk Down Wingnut School District's Throats

But only in the supplementary materials for teachers.

Last fall, a trio of rightwing candidates running on a culture war platform won the majority of the seats on the five-member school board for Temecula, California. They were supported by the "Inland Empire Family PAC" that presents itself as supporting "parental rights," as long as it's parents who want to ban "critical race theory" and to fight "forced LGBTQ+ acceptance." Don't you dare call them bigots, the bigots are the LGBTQ+s, who insist on not being invisible.

The new board quickly voted to ban critical race theory in the town's schools, and followed that up in early June with a three-to-two vote to reject a grade school social studies curriculum because curricular materials included a mention of Harvey Milk, the state's first openly gay elected official, who was assassinated in 1978 after not being invisible on the San Francisco City Council.

And as is so often the case with these shithead rightwingers, the textbook itself, Social Studies Alive!  doesn't even mention Milk by name. But supplementary materials for teachers do, so clearly if little kids even look at the book's cover, they'll get gay homosexual cooties.

Just to make clear where the rightwing majority stood, Board President Joseph Komrosky — he has a PhD from Claremont,   say no more! — baselessly slandered the gay rights icon, asking before the vote, "My question is, why even mention a pedophile?"

That bullshit got the attention of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who tweeted on June 3, 

An offensive statement from an ignorant person.

This isn’t Texas or Florida. In the Golden State, our kids have the freedom to learn.

Congrats Mr. Komrosky you have our attention. Stay tuned.

We like this guy. Have we mentioned we like this guy?

Newsom followed that up yesterday in a Twitter video, saying that the state is "stepping in" to make sure that kids in Temecula have social studies books. Newsom tweeted,

We’re going to purchase the book for these students — the same one that hundreds of thousands of kids are already using.

If these extremist school board members won’t do their job, we will — and fine them for their incompetence.

Newsom also released a statement saying that by the time Temecula schools open on August 14, he's not about to let the kids be without textbooks (which, again, do not even mention Milk although the supplementary materials for teachers do).

"Cancel culture has gone too far in Temecula: radicalized zealots on the school board rejected a textbook used by hundreds of thousands of students and now children will begin the school year without the tools they need to learn. If the school board won’t do its job by its next board meeting to ensure kids start the school year with basic materials, the state will deliver the book into the hands of children and their parents — and we’ll send the district the bill and fine them for violating state law."

 The Los Angeles Times explains that

State law requires that school districts have enough materials for every student, and the FAIR Act requires that school districts adopt social studies curricula that provide information on the roles that diverse Americans, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, have had in history and contemporary society.

The board must purchase one of the four standard programs approved by the state, a governor’s spokesperson said.

Newsom's office also pointed out that if the Temecula Schools don't adopt any of the four approved curricula, kids will be stuck with a "textbook published in 2006." Honestly, for the new Board members, that might be a feature, not a bug, since in that textbook there was never a US president named "Barack Hussein Obama," and therefore no need to take America back.

After the board voted to eradicate Harvey Milk from a textbook he was never in (although he was in the supplementary material for teachers), things got stupider in Temecula, as you'd expect when far-Right culture warriors take over a school board. In Mid-June, the board fired — without cause — the district's superintendent, Jodi McClay, who had worked in the district for 25 years. McClay's ouster prompted former leaders of the district to write a letter protesting the move, saying she had "established and maintained a solid record of instructional excellence in district schools." That probably just proves what a terrible Marxist she was, maybe, if other educators, who are all commies, thought she was a good teacher and leader.

Between MilkGate and McClay's firing, teachers and students are protesting, and parents in the district are pretty angry at the new board members. A recall effort has been launched against the three rightwing board members, Komrosky, Danny Gonzalez, and Jennifer Wiersma; that's currently in the signature-gathering phase.

We assume all the opposition has only convinced the wingnuts of the righteousness of their cause, since board meetings have also included some shows of support for the board, too. Following Newsom's pledge yesterday to make sure Temecula elementary schoolers get textbooks that are younger than they are, Komrosky griped in an emailed statement to the LA Times that heavens no, it wasn't only the Harvey Milk content that was not mentioned in the textbook although the supplementary materials for teachers do. Rather, he claimed, the board also rejected the curriculum

over concerns regarding the district’s process, including whether it had “adequately engaged the community regarding the adoption of curriculum” and whether the curriculum was appropriate for English learners and special education students.

It's unclear whether Komrosky actually wrote out the words "Yeah, that's the ticket!" or left them implied.

He added that after an "intense effort," an alternate elementary social studies curriculum had been put together by "district stakeholders," and that it would be presented at the school board's meeting coming on Tuesday. We'll translate that as "We scraped together some stuff from the internet at the last minute, and we're pretty sure we hit F7 to search and remove all the Hillsdale College copyright notices."

Komrosky seemed very put out by Newsom's interference, too, complaining,

“What is also unfortunate is that the Governor knows this and has elected to publish this threatened action ahead of the District’s hard work on this matter that will come to fruition in just a few days."

We won't pretend to be a California Education Law expert, but didn't that statement from Newsom's office say the school has to use an approved curriculum package, not just make it up as they go? We bet we haven't heard the last of this.

[ LAT / Advocate / LAT / Image created using DreamStudio AI and Photoshop]

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