Watsonville resident Takashi Mizuno speaks about the importance of Indigenous history at Pajaro Valley Unified School District study session on ethnic studies Friday. (Shaanth Nanguneri – Santa Cruz Local)

A town hall meeting April 1 is the first of several that board members plan to attend this month to hear community feedback on the issue. In another study session April 16, school district staff are expected to recommend potential vendors to train teachers to deliver ethnic studies classes. 

“I hope my fellow trustees really see that you have a big decision in your hands,” Pajaro Valley Unified School District Trustee Gabriel Medina told his colleagues at Friday’s meeting at the Watsonville City Council chambers. “Three of us were elected because the people chose to put us in these seats to advocate for them to make sure that their community vision was being upheld.”

The discussions come on the heels of a November election where three trustees were voted out of office after a contract renewal stalled with the consultant Community Responsive Education. The new board voted in January to return to the longstanding issue and make a decision by May. 

The board in September 2023 did not renew ethnic studies contract with Community Responsive Education. Two residents at the September meeting expressed concern that its founder had contributed to a curriculum that drew criticism of bias against Israelis and Jewish Americans. 

Since that decision, dozens of Pajaro Valley teachers, students and residents have pressured the board to reinstate the contract and have regularly attended meetings to speak in favor of the curriculum.

Teaching history in high school

Trustees at Friday’s meeting at the Watsonville City Council chambers received a 55-page presentation from administrators and teachers behind the courses. It described the in-depth analysis that high school students receive on the stories and histories of America’s most marginalized groups. 

School district leaders Friday faced some passionate activists, parents and students with bold red signs and a few keffiyeh scarves as symbols of support for Palestinians. Many participants spoke in support of the ethnic studies program and the axed Community Responsive Education contract with the district. 

Other speakers raised concerns about Community Responsive Education’s involvement with the ethnic studies program, antisemitism and contractor compliance with state law. 

“When I delved into this, I saw no antisemitism, I saw love,” said Pajaro Valley School District Trustee Joy Flynn during the session. “It jumped out at me.” 

District teachers and administrators with the program said that Community Responsive Education’s founder and co-director Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales gave them foundational preparation on how to build a curriculum, not what they must teach. Her removal more than a year ago threw a wrench in their progress at a critical moment of course expansion and teacher support, they argued.

Tintiangco-Cubales is a San Francisco State University professor and has written about Filipino Americans in ethnic studies, education and other topics.

“Allyson has strong views about what’s going on in Palestine and Israel and has written extensively on it,” Pajaro Valley Unified School District Trustee Misty Navarro said Friday. “I think because of that it was assumed that that’s what’s being taught in the classroom.”

Tintiangco-Cubales did not respond to a request for comment and has rejected allegations of antisemitism. She urged the board in an October 2023 letter to “accurately research what I have actually written and actually done instead of accepting the opinions of some of the loudest voices in the room.”

California adopted legislation in 2021 that mandated ethnic studies courses for high school graduation by 2029-30 and elective courses by 2025-26. The rollout is currently up for discussion in the state legislature.

Opponents and supporters of the Community Responsive Education attend a March 28 meeting. Teacher Bobby Pelz holds a sign in support of ethnic studies.  (Shaanth Nanguneri — Santa Cruz Local)

‘Teaching Palestine’

Since 2020, Tintiangco-Cubales has been part of a coalition of “liberated” ethnic studies educators and scholars who say they are resisting right-wing backlash “against teaching Palestine” in schools. The firestorm around her galvanized an ongoing campaign to clear the district’s ethnic studies program’s name and reinstate her position. 

Her critics, however, saw danger in her lead role behind controversial state-backed ethnic studies course guidance from 2019. The draft was scrapped by education officials over concerns of bias against Israelis and omissions of historical antisemitism, among complaints from other California ethnic groups.

At the September 2023 meeting, two residents urged the board not to renew the contract. Former Pajaro Valley Unified trustee Kim De Serpa said she had met with the residents and learned about the controversy from them. De Serpa urged her fellow trustees to join her in finding a different contractor. 

De Serpa was elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors in November and Joy Flynn took her seat in February. 

Five new Pajaro Valley Unified School District trustees have joined the board since September 2023: Flynn, Gabriel Medina, Carol Turley, Jessica Carrasco and Misty Navarro. The new board has been far less critical of Tintiangco-Cubales than the previous iteration.

Trustee Georgia Acosta, who was also critical of Community Responsive Education, was defeated in November by Carol Turley, who, alongside Medina and Carrasco, won their races after publicly engaging with CRE supporters. Navarro joined the board in October after the resignation of Trustee Jennifer Holm. 

Two administrators and two ethnic studies teachers discuss the program with Pajaro Valley Unified School District trustees during a March 28 study session. (Shaanth Nanguneri — Santa Cruz Local)

State legislation uncertainty

More than 30 Democratic state lawmakers have signed onto Assembly Bill 1468, which would create new, mandated standards for ethnic studies courses, while issuing guidance to districts to choose “high quality” contractors in compliance with state law.

“There is an organized group of people that adhere to this liberated ethnic studies model of teaching ethnic studies which is not what was intended,” said State Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles during a March 18 webinar with a coalition of Jewish groups.

AB 1468 would also require ethnic studies courses to maintain a focus on the “domestic experience” of historically marginalized groups, which could change the World History Ethnic Studies classes the district offers 10th graders. The class’s supplementary materials have explored issues like political conflict in Brazil, but teachers also discuss world wars and the Holocaust, according to educators and course outlines posted online.  

The bill, however, could be clarified or amended, and the district has yet to decide on a contractor. Sandino Gomez, an ethnic studies teacher at Pajaro Valley High School, told the trustees on Friday that the district’s world history ethnic studies courses don’t cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor do they ignore antisemitism as a significant form of oppression. 

Claudia Monjaras, the district’s assistant superintendent of elementary education, raised no issues in her comments to the board about the bill. She noted that a new checklist for antisemitism and a community ethnic studies committee would be in place to address further concerns. She welcomed the standards AB 1468 plans to provide. 

“They seem pretty confident that we shouldn’t be affected by it,” Pajaro Valley Unified School Board President Olivia Flores told Santa Cruz Local.

Trustees are not yet aware of who exactly the vendors offered will be, but there will be more than one up for consideration, Flores said. District staff noted in their presentation that they’ve used funds from the state to pay $104,000 over two school years for the CRE agreement. An anti-bias grant program from the state is expected to help fund the next vendor’s pay. 

But in light of the proposed bill, at least one trustee was more wary. 

“I don’t want to get the district in a situation where we’re facing litigation and going against the state,” Navarro said in an interview. “I would hate to do all this hard work only to have the state come in and say, ‘No, you can’t work with them.’”

Town hall meetings are posted on the school district’s Facebook page.

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