A conservative public school board president in Temecula, whose promotion of race and gender policies drew the district into national fights over critical race theory in the classroom and the rights of LGBTQ+ students, narrowly lost a recall vote Thursday.
Mount San Antonio College philosophy professor Joseph Komroski was elected to the board of the 28,000-student Temecula Valley Unified School District about 19 months ago. As part of a three-member conservative majority, he led the district as it joined a national wave of school boards that jumped headlong into the culture wars.
The district was sued after it banned the teaching of critical race theory and required parents to be notified if their children identify as a gender that does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. The lawsuit is still ongoing. Under Komroski, the district banned non-U.S. and non-California flags, a move seen as targeting LGBTQ+ pride flag displays. At a school board meeting last year, he also sparked controversy when he described gay civil rights activist and San Francisco County Supervisor Harvey Milk as a “pedophile.”
Last Result Polls for Komroski’s re-election found that voters representing the eastern and central portions of the district were against his remaining in office.
Of the 9,722 votes counted since June 4, 4,963 were in favor of the recall. 4,751 votes were against the recall.
Less than half of the 21,578 registered voters – 45.1% – cast a ballot.
The return ends a 2-2 deadlock on the board that began when Komroski’s colleague Danny Gonzalez resigned in December to move out of state. The board will not have a full five members until the November election.
In an email to the Times on Thursday, Komroski, who describes himself as a “God-fearing patriot” in his X bio, said he intends to run for the seat again.
“Given the narrow margin, I will likely run again in the November 2024 general election,” Komroski said.
“If not, it has been an honor to serve the Temecula community, and I am proud to have fulfilled all of my campaign promises as an elected official. My commitment to protecting the innocence of our children is unwavering.”
The message is similar to the one Komroski delivered at the end of the last school board meeting on June 11. During that meeting, however, he seemed more adamant about running for re-election. “I want to thank my community for giving me the opportunity to represent your voice, and I look forward to serving my community again in November,” he said.
The result, announced on Thursday, was met with celebration and condolence.
“We did it! We did it!” said Monica LaCombe, who has lived in the district for 21 years and whose children graduated from high school in Temecula Valley. One son graduated this year, and another child, who is nonbinary, graduates in 2022.
“What this board did was crazy. They just came in and scared everybody and made our community look really bad about who we are and how our kids are educated,” LaCombe said. “This recall election was critical to getting our district back on the path of progress that we were moving toward.”
Speaking about the board, he said, “We have both conservatives and liberals, but what they were doing was really extreme.”
Jason Craig, a parent of two boys who attend elementary school in the district, expressed disappointment in Thursday’s election results.
“Conservative parents don’t want our kids taught to be social justice warriors. The school district is not the right place for that,” said Craig, who volunteered for Komroski’s campaign and previously lost his own campaign for the board by a slim margin.
Craig said he supported Komroski’s policies as “preemptive” ways to prevent growing social ills such as critical race theory from entering classrooms.
“We don’t want racism in schools to become central to everyone’s identity, and we need to pay attention to how we teach history,” he said.
The Temecula district is one of many school districts in Southern California where LGBTQ+ identity and history have become major points of contention.
The Chino Valley Unified School District is also being sued for a parent notification policy similar to the one passed in the Temecula district. California Attorney General Rob Bonta dragged 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 found the notification requirement illegal in a preliminary ruling. The district’s school board then approved a revised policy, hoping it would stand the legal test while being just as effective as the original version.
Meanwhile, a different judge upheld the Temecula parental notification policy. That decision is being appealed.
