PVUSD sends apology letter to founder of ethnic studies consultant

Pajaro Valley Unified School District mailed an apology letter Wednesday to an ethnic studies consultant the district previously cut ties with over accusations of antisemitism. 

During the PVUSD board meeting Wednesday, board president Olivia Flores said that although trustees announced previously that the apology letter to Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales would be on the agenda, the district learned that the letter didn’t need to be formally discussed and voted on and so it sent the letter earlier that day. 

“We just made it happen,” Flores said at the start of the meeting. “The letter has already been written and mailed out prior to this meeting.”

The board had previously voted unanimously to send Tintiangco-Cubales an apology letter during an April 16 meeting when they approved a new one-year contract with her consulting firm, Community Responsive Education. However, the vote to send her a letter was based on a motion by Trustee Gabe Medina’s during that meeting and was not an item that had originally been on the agenda. 

In September 2023, the board voted to not renew a contract with Tintiangco-Cubales’s firm over what some trustees and community members alleged were antisemitism concerns related to the consultant’s involvement in a controversial 2019 model ethnic studies curriculum developed for the state.

A month after trustees reversed course and voted to renew Tintiangco-Cubales’ contract, a community member complained to the district that the board had violated the Brown Act – the laws that promote transparency in public meetings. The complaints related to the apology motion and another motion Medina made to censure former trustee Kim De Serpa for accusing Tintiangco-Cubales of antisemitism, as they were items voted on but not on the agenda. 

As a result of the complaint, the board voted during its June 11 meeting to overturn the apology letter and censure votes. Trustees said they would vote again on the apology letter during Wednesday’s meeting. Superintendent Heather Contreras reassured trustees that the letter would be on the agenda after Trustee Joy Flynn asked to have certainty that it would be. 

At Wednesday’s meeting, four community members spoke against the decision to not place the letter on the agenda so the public could hear trustees discuss the apology. 

Parent Lourdes Barraza, a prominent Tintiangco-Cubales supporter, said “this apology should not be made quietly.” Barraza and dozens of students, teachers and community members have gone to meeting after meeting since the fall of 2023 urging the board to apologize to Tintiangco-Cubales and to renew her contract. 

“If PVUSD is truly about equity, then be equitable in acknowledgments of wrongs,” she said. 

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