The Temecula school board voted to rescind two controversial policies after a state agency said they were participating in unfair labor practices.
In a 5-0 vote during closed session Tuesday, Dec. 17, the Temecula Valley Unified School Board rescinded its parent notification policy and flag ban policy after a ruling from the California Public Employment Relations Board said the policies violated the Educational Employment Relations Act.
“We didn’t have any choice, we were told by PERB that we had to rescind it because they both violated the teacher’s contracts,” school board member Steve Schwartz said on Dec. 18. The Public Employment Relations Board ruling came Oct. 14.
Discussion Tuesday night in closed session ended in a unanimous vote to withdraw both the policies, Schwartz said.
A report published by the Public Employment Relations Board, said the district violated employees contracts by putting the policies into play without negotiating things like employee discipline.
“It was not necessarily illegal but they (policies) have to be negotiated if they affect the contract,” Schwartz said.
The two policies were put in place in 2023. The parent notification policy requires schools to tell parents within three days if their child identifies as transgender, the policy took off in California with districts, including Chino Valley Unified, Murrieta Valley Unified, and Orange Unified passing almost identical policies within weeks of each other.
In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB1955 into law which made such policies illegal. Chino challenged the law, filing a lawsuit the day after the bill was signed.
The flag policy, which was also passed in Chino, bans all flags from classrooms that are not the American flag or the California state flag.
During board comments Tuesday night Emil Barham, a new board member, said it was a sad day because he had to rescind two policies he agrees with.
He said the flag policy allowed for neutral classrooms, which he said voters want, and by taking it away it could distract from the learning process.
“Consider the impacts and the effects, and this is what I thought of,” he said, “as the Gaza war lingered on there was a lot of unrest on college campuses and I thought to myself ‘thank God we have a flag policy.’”
Schwartz said he thought some good points were made during the meeting but at the time the policy was passed he considered it arbitrary and said it targeted certain flags. The policy has been criticized for targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
“I go back and forth on that,” Schwartz said. “By keeping other flags off campuses it prevents what happened at a lot of universities.”
Schwartz was referring to campus unrest during the 2023-2024 school year during the Gaza war.
He said he believed the notification policy was a violation of civil rights and pointed out that the state already made it illegal.
“Sometimes when you make a hard and fast rule about that it can put some children in jeopardy,” Schwartz said.
Weirsma said she has heard the policies were useless and also that parents want neutral classrooms.
“I am fighting for protecting these kids and advocating for parents,” Weirsma said.
She said if the Public Employment Relations Board said they went through the process incorrectly, they would need to reevaluate and come back to policies.
“We are going to back up and do the process as we should,” Weirsma said.
The Public Employment Relations Board complaint was originally filed in 2023 and a final cease and desist was sent Oct. 14.
The Public Employment Relations Board reached out, Schwartz said, telling the district to suspend the policies before the ratification of the November election results and Superintendent Gary Woods requested an extension to Dec. 20.
