The voters and the court have spoken — PVUSD needs to bring back its ethnic studies contract

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.

This November, Pajaro Valley Unified School District constituents voted for drastic change on the district’s governing board. Across all three candidate races, incumbent trustees Georgia Acosta, Oscar Soto and Adam Scow were ousted in favor of their challengers, Carol Turley, Gabriel Medina and Jessica Carrasco, respectively.

A key issue in these elections was the board’s hasty decision not to renew PVUSD’s ethnic studies contract in September 2023, after two people who don’t have kids in PVUSD schools made unsubstantiated and confusing allegations of antisemitism. The board then spent over a year ignoring requests from students, teachers, parents and community members to re-agendize the contract for discussion and reinstate it. 

Voters have made their will clear by electing new candidates who promised support for ethnic studies and transparent, student-centered decision-making. Our grassroots group, Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice, believes it is time for the board to finally listen to constituents and reinstate the contract.

We are a group of educators, parents, students, alumni and community members who have spent the past year advocating for authentic ethnic studies at PVUSD. We have rallied with students and teachers, spoken at school board meetings, organized an ethnic studies community town hall and a school board candidate forum, and created ethnic studies “freedom schools” around local histories of labor organizing. 

We believe PVUSD must reinstate the contract because it is in our students’ best interests and there is deep support from the community. 

The allegations of antisemitism we’ve heard are deliberately vague and confusing and contingent upon conflating criticism of Israel with discrimination against Jewish people. We cannot continue to privilege the pro-Israel agenda of a few individuals over the education of thousands of students.

We see the recent election as proof the community supports PVUSD’s ethnic studies contract with the educational consultancy, Community Responsive Education (CRE). This contract was planned for three years, two of which were completed before CRE came under attack.

Community members have made 301 public comments calling the board to renew the contract, with 123 of these from PVUSD students. Constituents who have shown up to support the contract represent the racial, generational and geographic diversity of our school district.

The Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers supports the contract, and PVUSD ethnic studies teachers have described it as “indispensable” to their work. Ethnic studies faculty from UC Santa Cruz, Cal State Monterey Bay and Cabrillo College and education faculty from UCSC have spoken in support of the contract. Jewish and Asian American community members have written letters urging the return of the contract. 

This broad support stems from the benefits that ethnic studies – particularly ethnic studies that center local communities and histories – provide at the K-12 level. Research has shown that culturally relevant ethnic studies courses improve student attendance, graduation rates and college enrollment.

We see these positive impacts in our own students who have taken the ethnic studies classes developed in partnership with CRE. Students have come in droves to Wednesday night board meetings to give powerful testimonies. They have spoken about how their ethnic studies classes changed their perspectives, taught them to use their voices, developed their empathy and interest in learning and made them determined to succeed. Our ethnic studies students have also spearheaded change in their schools by creating the PVUSD Kindness and Courage Campaign.

The controversy around the ethnic studies contract centers on CRE’s founder, Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales. She is a Filipina American professor at San Francisco State University with extensive expertise in K-12 ethnic studies and family ties to the Pajaro Valley. She served on the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum advisory committee in 2019. 

Tintiangco-Cubales, CRE and the PVUSD ethnic studies program were attacked as antisemitic by two individuals at the September 2023 board meeting. The range of claims made include: that Tintiangco-Cubales signed a letter defending ethnic studies educators and curricula, that she criticized a seminar on antisemitism, that she wrote a “biased and bigoted curriculum,” that she has a “divisive and controversial agenda,” and that she is not complying with California law.

None of these allegations clarify exactly what antisemitic thing she has said or done, or provide evidence for it. None of the allegations have directly addressed what is antisemitic about CRE’s work with PVUSD, or the PVUSD ethnic studies curriculum. The allegations are vague, constantly shifting and often conflate Tintiangco-Cubales with CRE and with PVUSD’s ethnic studies curriculum.

As far as we can tell amid this lack of clarity, the complaints against. Tintiangco-Cubales stem from her involvement with the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum advisory committee. Critics objected to that committee’s inclusion of Palestinian American studies (historically a part of Asian American studies) within the first draft of the ethnic studies model curriculum, because it necessarily contains critical discussions of Israel and the ideology of Zionism. 

The California Department of Education faced political pressure about the curriculum from pro-Israel interests and eventually scrubbed all sample lessons featuring Palestinian Americans from the final version of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. It is difficult to verify exactly what was removed because the public no longer has access to the original, challenged draft of the ethnic studies model curriculum, but the final curriculum no longer contains any meaningful discussions of Palestinian Americans. (There is one passing mention of Palestinian food and one of a student’s Palestinian parents.)  

Members of that original curriculum advisory committee have faced accusations of antisemitism and attacks on their work ever since.

However, a recent federal court decision in a similar case makes it clear that these accusations do not hold up to scrutiny. 

In November, a Los Angeles court dismissed a lawsuit containing similar accusations against ethnic studies educators at Los Angeles Unified School District. The plaintiffs had alleged antisemitism and asked the court to block the school district from including any language critical of Israel or Zionism in its teaching materials.

The federal judge called the lawsuit a “direct attack on curricula” and “absent any evidence.” He made it clear that students have a right to receive information, and the plaintiffs’ request to censor criticism of Israel and Zionism was a restriction of students’ First Amendment freedoms. 

We believe this sends a clear message to PVUSD and other districts: It is not antisemitic to criticize Israel, and students’ rights to an education take precedence over pro-Israel special interests. 

Like the Los Angeles plaintiffs, these individuals who blocked the renewal of the CRE contract have made it clear that their interests lie primarily in censoring criticism of Israel. One was recognized for writing the greatest number of pro-Israel letters to newspapers in 2014. Both have publicly disparaged valid criticisms around Israel’s killing of Palestinians as “antisemitic blood libel.”

We believe it is racist and undemocratic to prioritize the pro-Israel special interests of these few people, all of European descent, over the voices and interests of a school district that is 85% students of color. They should not be allowed to trample over the recommendations of subject matter experts and the needs of teachers and students for their own agenda.

To truly put students first, we need to prioritize their voices and opinions. We encourage you to listen to our compilation of students’ comments, and join us in urging the PVUSD board to renew the CRE contract.

Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice is a grassroots coalition of educators, students, parents, and community members working for liberated ethnic studies in our classrooms and justice in the Pajaro Valley and beyond. Find our work here.