President-elect Donald Trump is not the only conservative candidate who made a comeback on Election Day. In Temecula, California, former school board president Joseph Komrosky was elected a trustee once again after losing a June recall race following a series of controversies that brought national attention to the school district about an hour northeast of San Diego. 

By just over 200 votes, Komrosky eked out a win against his teachers union-backed opponent, David Sola, to obtain a seat on the governing body of the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD), which enrolls about 26,500 students. Three other seats on the five-member school board were also up for election. Conservatives won most of these races, giving the school board that has made headlines for its contentious policies related to race, gender and sexuality a right-wing majority once again. 

Results from the school board election and other races throughout California were just finalized December 3 because state laws and voting-by-mail procedures require more time to process ballots. In major elections, officials have up to a month to certify results. 

Across the country, school boards and states have enacted policies in recent years to ban critical race theory (CRT), censor books, single out LGBTQ+ youth or ignore the lines between church and state. Temecula is a city with a plurality of Republican voters, and its school board has passed policies more aligned with the rightward shift in public schools in red states than with the liberal ethos of California. The trustees banned curriculum described as CRT and all flags but the American flag, which was widely perceived as a way to prevent Pride flags from being displayed on campuses. The board rejected a social studies curriculum for mentioning gay historical figure Harvey Milk in May 2023, which drew criticism from California Gov. Gavin Newsom. It also backed a plan that would have required school personnel to “out” transgender students to their families. Due to legal action, or the threat of such action, most of these policies were rolled back, but the election outcome places the newly conservative board in prime position to usher in more divisive proposals. 

“We did it! We won!!! Praise the Lord,” Komrosky said in an Instagram post after the election results were certified. “Thank you Temecula for standing behind me again. Thanks to all of you who supported me during this campaign, as I couldn’t have done it without you. That said, I will continue to protect the innocence of your children at TVUSD.”

Komrosky did not respond to The 19th’s request for comment about his victory, which came as a blow to organizers locally and nationally who mobilized for the recall campaign against him. After Komrosky and two other conservatives joined the five-member school board in 2022, they proceeded to pass policies that sparked public outrage, with footage of parents ejected from heated Temecula school board meetings going viral on social media and directing national attention to a town of nearly 111,000 that had previously been known for its wineries. The board also faced scrutiny when it fired TVUSD Superintendent Jodi McClay without cause. In November, McClay began as superintendent of St. Helena Unified School District near San Francisco.  

The three conservatives were all elected with help from Pastor Tim Thompson’s Inland Empire Family PAC, which aims to fill school boards with members of the Christian right. In May, Trump’s son Eric Trump and Kash Patel, his pick to lead the FBI, traveled to Temecula to headline a May fundraiser for the political action committee. That month, Patel also appeared on Thompson’s program “Our Watch With Tim Thompson.” 

The successful recall against Komrosky and the departure of another conservative board member who relocated to Texas caused the Temecula school board to lose its right-wing majority for much of this year. But now that Komrosky has been elected once again, along with two newcomers who have been described as right-leaning and one liberal-leaning incumbent,  Komrosky’s detractors predict that the school board will likely resume approving policies that split the community and garner negative attention for the city.

One of them is Jeff Pack, cofounder of One Temecula Valley PAC, a political action committee started with the aim of uniting community members across partisan lines.

“Obviously the dangerous part is Komrosky is back on the board,” he said. “We’re disappointed about that, because we … think he’s going to be even more vindictive this time. All he has to do is say a couple of buzzwords that scare people, and we have to thread a whole bunch of needles to convince them that they’re not showing pornography in schools.”

Pack foresees more book banning by the school board, attempts to blur church-state separation and possibly the singling out of teachers who don’t subscribe to the trustees’ views.  

Edgar Diaz, president of local teachers union Temecula Valley Educators Association (TVEA), won’t hazard a guess about the policies the newly elected conservative board members might enact. He stressed, however, how important it is for all school board members to prioritize students’ educational needs. 

“That’s all we’re really focused on, and we’re hoping to work with any school board member, as we did last time, that would help to move forward those goals and set down a path that would allow our district to continue to be successful in educating the students of the community,” he said. 

Diaz said that TVEA is made up of educators of all political persuasions but did not discuss why he thought only one of the three candidates backed by the union, incumbent Steven Schwartz, won their races. Fellow incumbent Allison Barclay lost her seat to Melina Anderson, endorsed by the Riverside County Republican Party. A third TVEA-backed candidate, Gary Oddi, lost his race to Emil Roger Barham, also endorsed by the Riverside County Republican Party. Two conservative candidates, Komroksy and Jon Cobb, were endorsed by the Inland Empire Family PAC, but Schwartz defeated the latter contender.

The community divisions over the Temecula school board have attracted activists from Grandparents for Truth, a project of People for the American Way, a nationwide progressive advocacy organization. Grandparents for Truth works to give students the “freedom to learn” by opposing censorship and championing diversity in the classroom, among other issues.

Alana Byrd, national field director for People for the American Way, fears that far right conservatives may be using the same playbook to broadly enact policies, such as religious instruction in public schools, in districts across the country. She said the group is monitoring attempts in states such as Oklahoma and Texas to incorporate Christian Bibles in classrooms and Christian stories in the curriculum, respectively. 

“As an organization that’s committed to religious liberty, we’re not preaching against the Bible. We’re not preaching against religion at all,” Byrd said. “The problem is that separation of church and state, when it is either mandated or it’s financially incentivized to teach a specific religion as this kind of state-sponsored religion, that’s where it gets really concerning. And I would not be surprised if there seems to be a playbook, if the next thing on Komrosky and his colleagues’ list is to introduce some sort of religious mandate or thinly veiled mandate.”

Despite the success of the recall campaign, Pack said it was an uphill battle for One Temecula Valley and the Temecula Valley Educators Association to stop Komrosky and other right-wing candidates from making it onto the school board. Republicans not only make up a plurality of the electorate in Temecula, but voters in Riverside County, where it is located, narrowly backed Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race. California may be a blue state, but it is home to millions of red voters, with some communities, particularly outside of the state’s major cities, known for their dense concentrations of GOP supporters.  

“We did an incredible job,” Pack said of the effort to elect more progressives to the board. “I think it’s historic for all of the candidates, all of the efforts, the money, the time and just the effort spent on working to get these candidates elected has never been done here. We’re proud of that effort, and we came real close. Hopefully in the future, we’ll be able to get them over the line because I think the community is going to start seeing some of the damage that has already been done and will start affecting the kids and the schools.”

He said the tight race between Komrosky and Sola demonstrates how important it is for the public to vote in school board elections. Some people likely voted for president but not for school board because they didn’t think the local race mattered or don’t have school-age children, Pack said.

“Our mantra has always been that a failed school district is a failed city, a failed community,” he said. “If the school district tanks, then you’re going to start seeing the repercussions of it, even if you don’t have kids. So, yeah, local local elections really do matter, especially at the school level.”

Because taxpayer dollars support schools, Diaz said, all community members should feel invested in school board races.

“Everyone has a voice in that, just like everyone has a voice in who should represent their neighborhood in the city council,” Diaz said.

While Byrd is dismayed by the outcome of the Temecula school board races, she said the work to hold the new trustees accountable and uplift the rights of all students in the district must continue.  

“The One Temecula Valley PAC and the activists on the ground as well as Grandparents for Truth will continue to monitor what policies they might introduce and continue to fight back against anything that doesn’t support diversity, doesn’t support the students, doesn’t support the teachers, doesn’t support the families,” she said.