Crossfire continues during pre-Closed Session portion of January TVUSD school board meeting

1TVPAC Team

TEMECULA — If you didn’t attend or watch the Tuesday, January 28 Temecula Valley Unified School District school board meeting, it was a doozy for a multitude of reasons. 

Objectively speaking, a more than six-hour meeting is enough to qualify as such. 

In this report, we will tackle the preliminary open-to-the-public portion of Closed Session part of the meeting as it showed a lack of cohesion on the board. 

During the pre-Closed Session portion, the board reviews and approves the meeting agenda before retiring to closed session, a process that typically takes 3-5 minutes, even when items are either pulled for discussion or removed from the agenda altogether. 

On Tuesday night,  they spent 40 minutes arguing and making multiple failed motions before finally approving the agenda with minor changes.

The debate began quickly when the subject of moving the Public Comment portion of the meeting from the beginning of Open Session, to near the end of the meeting. 

“I move to have the public comments move to the end of the agenda, do I have a second?” TVUSD Board President Melinda Anderson said. 

“We need to have a discussion on that,” Jen Wiersma interjected. “So, my feeling is as we've looked at the precedent that's been set and best practices we're here to represent the people we are not here to hope that people sit in this room glean from us and don't have questions when they have something to say at the mic, it's really important. We have people who can't sit in this room for 3 hours. I wouldn't expect them to. I know this is strategic in some manner.”

Anderson noted that the move was not her idea, but she took advice from district lawyers and security personnel. 

“I feel like the rationale behind it is valid,” she said. 

Anderson said her goal was to minimize arguing. The vote was 3-2 to confirm moving the Public Comments to the end of the meeting. 

The point was made by Anderson that any public comments on agenda items are still done during the meeting and before the board votes on those items, so that public comments can be considered before voting.

Trustee Steve Schwartz wanted the agenda item "neutral classroom" removed from this meeting agenda, sent to subcommittee, then put it back on the agenda in the future when the subcommittee could present a proposal for discussion and potential vote.

Joe Komrosky argued to change the name of the subcommittee to “Parental Notification,” and it was changed. Then he went on to show and describe to the rest of the board similar policies put forth in Chino Hills and Placentia Yorba Linda that he said, “avoids AB 1955”, a bill passed in 2024 which supporters typically refer to as the “anti-forced outing policies” bill.

Komrosky then suggested the district should hire another lawyer, one who wrote the policies for the Chino Hills district.

“I feel at this point what would be right and just is for me to be a part of that committee,” Wiersma said. “Because I have held the line for so long I would respectfully ask you that I would have a part in that.”

“Dr. Anderson and I actually wrote this policy,” Emil Barham said. “You two are just pulling it from what already exists and I think that when you actually sit down and write the policy from scratch and pull the Ed Codes, pull the Penal Codes, we take ownership of the policy in a more substantive, explicit way. I'm going to respectfully disagree. It took us hours to sit down and write this policy.”

Anderson expressed concerns with working with Wiersma, due to Wiersma’s lack of availability and lack of communication in her view. 

“I've tried to contact you and I need to work with someone that I can have communication with in a professional working relationship with, so it's hard if I reach out and I try to communicate and I don't receive a response,” she said. “Right now my preference would be to work with Mr. Barham because I can work with Mr. Barham and I've worked with him extensively. He returns calls and texts.”

Wiersma shot back. 

“The reason I haven't returned your calls is and I have a stack of emails and misinformation and lies that you've sent out to the community, so when we sit down at a board workshop we'll hammer that out,” she said. “But that is a disingenuous perspective to bring in. 

“You and I have things to meet out, in terms of the disrespect, the lack of integrity, and the misinformation that you have put out about my work and who I am as a person.”

Wiersma said being left off the committee would be a relegation and “would be wrong.”

Schwartz interjected, asking the board to get back on track and talk about policies referring to the educating of students. 

“Let’s talk about schools, children and not wasting money,” Schwartz said. “Let’s leave this policy to the people who have worked on it, you call the question and we’ll vote.”

The board voted 3-2 (Anderson, Barham and Schwartz) to deny Wiersma a spot on the committee. It voted 4-1, with Komrosky voting no, to approve the Open Session agenda. 

The board then retired to closed session. 

Watch the full meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/live/wAisWZNL7rc?si=4cP3B6Um1x_Tnb36