What’s expected of a School Board Trustee?
Evaluating how Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez have approached the job
Serving as a public School Board Trustee can be a tough job, though it may not look like it at first glance. Elected by the voters who live in the school district area, the trustees’ job is to help govern the district by working together with the superintendent. An effective trustee:
Values and supports public education
Carefully manages district assets for the purpose of educating local students
Listens to, respects, and considers all community points of view before making decisions
Keeps the focus on learning and achievement for all students
Let’s look briefly at each of these and see how our new trustees stack up.
Supporting public education
It should be obvious that a public school trustee supports public education. Why else would you run for this office? If you don’t send your own children to public school, or if you think public schools should be defunded, you wouldn’t want to become a TVUSD trustee.
This is a job for people who value public education and want to help it succeed.
When Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez were elected in November 2022, some people said that their real agenda was to destroy public schools. We didn’t believe that then, and we still don’t. We believe they were sincere in their campaign promises to pay attention to what parents want, to be transparent, and to improve our local schools.
Over the last several months, though, we have sometimes started to wonder. We’ve watched them:
Pass policies that are against the law, inviting expensive lawsuits
Hire attorneys at high rates and unfavorable terms, incurring monthly legal fees that are running nearly four times the district’s normal legal costs
Fire an effective, respected superintendent without cause and then abruptly hire a new superintendent without care or transparency
Antagonize our teachers by discounting their curriculum expertise, implying they’re teaching things they’re not, and delaying a state-funded COLA and negotiated salary increases
Pass policies that take up administrators’ time but are unrelated to learning
These actions don’t support our public schools.
Managing district assets
A trustee by definition is managing someone else’s assets for that person’s benefit. As a trustee, you have a fiduciary responsibility to manage assets well. A public school board trustee’s responsibility is to manage school district assets—income, facilities, personnel, equipment, reputation—in the best way possible to educate local students.
As a new TVUSD trustee coming into the job, you should know that managing a public school district is different from what you’ve done before. You’ll need to ask questions, listen, and learn the complex details of how the district is funded and managed, where all the money goes, and why it goes there. Then you’ll have the knowledge to help guide the district in making the best use of its assets to serve its 26,500 students.
Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez apparently thought they already knew everything they needed to know. None of the three attended school board member training before coming to their first meeting (they had a conflict because they’d signed up for a conference), so they did not know what the job entailed.
Despite this, at their first meeting they elected Komrosky as Board President and Wiersma as Clerk. Komrosky had never attended a school board meeting and clearly did not understand the basic rules for running a meeting. Superintendent Dr. McClay helped him get through it.
As an aside: If you took a position you’d never held before in an organization you’d never worked for, how would you approach the job? Would you want to understand the organization’s culture, who does what, the regulations and traditions there, and then gain the trust of co-workers and your direct reports? Or would you just start issuing orders? Isn’t that a little like volunteering for the Army and expecting to be made General on your first day at boot camp?
Since that first meeting, we’ve seen a pattern that doesn’t look like responsible asset management:
In March they hired a consultant to hold CRT workshops with teachers and additional consultants to inform the community about CRT. (All consultants were opposed to CRT.)
In January they hired a new law firm to represent the board. The district already had six law firms under contract and available for board members to consult, all of which charged considerably less per hour than the new firm.
On June 27 they hired an executive search firm (Hazard, Young, Attea Associates) to find a new superintendent. Komrosky allowed no discussion of the search process and there was no competitive bidding.
On August 9 they contracted with Advocates for Faith & Freedom to defend against the lawsuit that resulted from their ban on CRT. The contract was unnecessary, as district insurance covered defense.
On August 22 they hired a public relations consultant whose wife had contributed to Gonzalez’ election campaign. No other firms were considered.
We have been disappointed in Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez. So far we have not seen them be good trustees of the public funds meant for our children’s education. Instead of managing district assets for our local students’ benefit, we have watched them spend money irresponsibly on attorneys, consultants, and firing the superintendent; invite lawsuits; create a stressful environment for teachers and other employees; and tarnish the good reputation we developed over decades.
Considering all points of view
Communities contain people from different backgrounds with varied opinions about education, and Temecula’s wide spectrum of opinion has been on display at school board meetings. Unfortunately people on both extreme ends of the spectrum have yelled and argued and called individual trustees names (“groomer,” “Communist,” “pedophile,” “homophobe”). Being yelled at and called offensive names is not pleasant, when you’re trying your best to improve our schools.
The yelling and offensive talk boil over into social media (especially if you’re a trustee who likes to promote yourself on social media) and may even hit you when you’re buying groceries or at the playground with your kids.
Yet somehow you must, as a trustee, look past that and consider points of view that aren’t your own. It’s hard not to tune out the extremists, but you should always listen to the quieter, more reasonable speakers at board meetings, who present objections or ideas that differ from yours. You must be open to other opinions and willing to find a middle ground that resolves their objections and incorporates their ideas.
So how have Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez approached this difficult task?
At their first board meeting, they presented a resolution banning CRT from being taught in Temecula schools. A number of people spoke in opposition to the ban, concerned about its vague wording, what it might mean for AP and IB classes, and how it would affect classroom discussions. Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez refused to wait for student and teacher input or to address their concerns. They immediately passed the ban over the protests of the other two board members.
At subsequent meetings they have acted similarly: they present a new attorney firm, a new consultant, a new policy, or even a new superintendent; the public and other board members express concerns or objections; but they ignore those objections and act immediately to pass it.
Instead of trying to find a middle ground that addresses valid concerns, they impose their preferences on everyone.
Keeping the focus on learning
If you’re elected to the TVUSD Board of Education, your job is to improve learning for all students in the district. That’s it!
Your own political leanings should not affect what you do, because the trustee position is non-partisan. Your religious beliefs are also irrelevant to the job, as our community includes a wide variety of beliefs and your job is to represent everyone. You’re a public servant focused solely on educating our Temecula students.
Unfortunately, Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez have inserted politics and religion into board governance. Because CRT has never been taught in the TVUSD, their resolution banning CRT can only be seen as a political gesture. Their refusal to adopt state-approved social studies curriculum was primarily based on not wanting to allow optional material that mentioned a gay rights activist. Similarly, their discussion when they banned any “flag” on school grounds except the U.S. and California state flags appeared only to reflect their religious and political views about pride flags and Black lives matter flags.
Instead of keeping the focus on education, these actions have distracted everyone from the real work of learning.
To sum up…
We wish we could say that TVUSD School Board Trustees Komrosky, Wiersma, and Gonzalez have been effective in their jobs. But so far they have not, and after 11 months of watching them, we’ve lost patience with their inability to learn from their mistakes and grow into their position. We believe they should be recalled.
Let’s get politics out of Temecula’s public schools and get back to the basics—educating our children.
Please join us in voting to recall Trustee Komrosky. And watch for information on the November 2024 election, when several seats will be on the ballot.