Quick Take
The Pajaro Valley Unified School District governing board will soon vote on a new contract with a vendor to continue developing the district’s ethnic studies program. Superintendent Heather Contreras said Community Responsive Education, which previously worked with the district before the board declined to renew its contract, will be among the options for consideration.
A consulting firm that helped Pajaro Valley Unified School District teachers and staff develop a praised ethnic studies framework and curriculum will be one vendor among several options for a new contract at an upcoming school board meeting.
The decision to include Community Responsive Education (CRE) comes more than a year after the district’s governing board declined to renew a contract with CRE, launching months of activism by teachers, students and parents. They urged the district to continue working with the firm, co-led by Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, a professor in the Asian American studies department at San Francisco State University.
Superintendent Heather Contreras told Lookout this week that district staff are finalizing which vendors will be considered, but that Community Responsive Education will be one of them.
“It’s up to the board to make a decision,” she said about the inclusion of CRE.
She said that the board could vote to select a new vendor earlier than previously planned, possibly at its next meeting, on April 16, instead of its initial timeline of May 7.
English ethnic studies teacher Bobby Pelz, a supporter of CRE, said he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the contract getting renewed. Pelz teaches at Watsonville High School.
“I’m definitely holding my breath and trying really hard not to get too excited,” he said.
Community Responsive Education worked with the district for two years before the board declined to renew its contract for a third year in September 2023. The third year of work would have trained administrators on the ethnic studies program so that they could prepare new staff and teachers and ensure the program isn’t lost through teacher or staff turnover.
At the September 2023 board meeting, several community members and two former trustees urged that the board not renew the contract because they were concerned about Tintiangco-Cubales’ involvement in a 2019 draft of the state’s model curriculum for ethnic studies. They said the draft – which was rejected by Gov. Gavin Newsom – included bias against Jewish people.
Since then, community members, teachers and students have attended meetings saying there’s nothing antisemitic about the curriculum or Tintiangco-Cubales. They’ve said that the curriculum has instead helped students be more empathetic and demanded that the board continue working with Tintiangco-Cubales.
Pelz said Tintiangco-Cubales and CRE staff gave him the “competence to do what I’m doing” in teaching ethnic studies to high school students. He said they are experts in helping teachers create engaging lessons for their students.
The issue became so contentious that three former trustees who were on the board at the time of the September 2023 meeting lost their reelection bids in November to newcomers who had actively urged the board to renew the contract with CRE. Two additional trustees were appointed to the board over the past several months, bringing a total of five new board members on the seven-member governing body.
During a study session last Friday, trustee Gabe Medina acknowledged that several board members were elected largely because the community wanted them to advocate for a CRE contract renewal, which he supports. Medina, trustees Carol Turley and Jessica Carrasco were all elected in November, replacing former trustees Oscar Soto, Georgia Acosta and Adam Scow, respectively.
The majority of people who spoke at the Friday meeting, and in meetings prior, have supported the ethnic studies program and have said they haven’t seen anything antisemitic in the material. Several community members, however, including those who originally spoke out against Tintiangco-Cubales in September 2023, have continued to denounce her and urge the board not to renew her contract. Doug Kaplan, Gil Stein and Roz Shorenstein have long been against CRE.
Shorenstein told Lookout on Thursday she’s glad that the board is considering at least two alternatives to CRE. Her daughters attended PVUSD schools and she has two grandchildren currently in the district.
“I’m in favor of ethnic studies, and I’m very glad that the board is considering other consultants,” she said.
Shorenstein said part of what she objects to is what Tintiangco-Cubales, and other ethnic studies experts, have written about what should be included in ethnic studies courses and how they describe the history of Israel and Palestine.
Shorenstein added that she hasn’t seen all of the course materials in PVUSD’s ethnic studies courses and she doesn’t know of anything specific in them that is antisemitic.
”I’m not in the classes. So I have no idea,” she said. “All I can tell you is the opinions in print of the consultant.”
Lookout reached Tintiangco-Cubales but she declined to comment, saying she wants to wait until after the vote to speak to the media.
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