THE POWER OF voter education and grassroots organizing was on full display in Temecula in June as a coalition of educators, parents and community members successfully recalled an extremist school board member who brought chaos to Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD).

Temecula Valley educators know firsthand how much a school board election can impact a community, after headline-chasing extremists won a majority on the board and began imposing their hateful agenda on the school district and community. After two years of tumult that included a forced outing policy and the refusal to adopt textbooks because they included a section on LGBTQ+ rights hero Harvey Milk, voters successfully recalled former TVUSD Board president Joseph Komrosky by a little more than 200 votes in mid-June.

Temecula Valley Educators Association (TVEA) members are ready to refocus on supporting all students without the chaos of an extremist board president.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to working on issues of supporting student success and safety in classrooms,” said TVEA President Edgar Diaz.

Edgar Diaz

Determined to take back their public schools from extremists, TVEA members mobilized to defend their students and community from hate. Educators joined concerned parents, families and community groups to mount a recall campaign last year, submitting more than 5,200 signatures in December to hold an election to remove Komrosky. TVEA members walked door-to-door to collect signatures and then to ask members for their votes to say yes to the recall and no to extremists on the Temecula school board.

TVEA member and high school math teacher Steve Maxey knocked on hundreds of doors to take back Temecula schools. Maxey says he wasn’t involved much in his local association before this and he was compelled to act when the extremist board showed its true colors.

“When they took over the board, we wanted to give them a fair shot. Then they fired the superintendent, and we knew,” Maxey says. “I was very involved in collecting signatures. Then we moved onto canvassing and making sure people got out to vote. I had lots of parents who were interested in getting involved and working toward change, so we organized them as well.”

Derek Heid, TVEA high school area representative, also spent the last several months gathering signatures, building community awareness, educating voters and calling them to action. A Temecula resident since he was 5 years old, Heid says the level of anger and vitriol at TVUSD school board meetings was unheard of before the extremists came to power — and then it became the focus of those meetings.

“I heard a lot of falsehoods, inaccuracies and outright lies about my colleagues, my association, our statewide association and eventually myself,” says Heid, an AP literature and dual enrollment teacher. “I finally decided that enough is enough and if we don’t stand up for the truth, they will continue to lie.”

Maxey says it was interesting to meet voters and talk about the public schools and leadership that all Temecula students deserve. He says the “ragtag group of community members, teachers, parents and military people” started out a bit wide-eyed, but before long were a lean, mean, canvassing machine — which definitely made a difference when the votes were tallied.

“We knew it was going to be close and hard, but we knew how important it was to us and the community. So, we were ready to work hard and let the community decide,” Maxey says. “And it feels really good to win and close the book on this.”

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