At the start of 2025, there was cautious optimism surrounding the Temecula Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees. After recent years marked by controversy, ideological battles, and an autocratic leadership style, the board chose Melinda Anderson as president, sidestepping another year under Joseph Komrosky. For a brief moment, it appeared the board might be turning a corner.

That optimism proved short-lived.

The board voted against a proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Riverside University Health System — Behavioral Health, which would have provided free, family-consented mental health and substance abuse services to adolescents. This was not a vote grounded in facts or a thoughtful debate about best practices — it was a politically charged rejection that will have real consequences for students who are struggling.

It is yet another chapter in the long, sordid saga that is Jen Wiersma’s making and is designed to only benefit Jen Wiersma.

Students be damned. 

Wiersma’s behavior has paralyzed the board and fractured the community. Board meetings have devolved into spectacles, dominated by angry partisans and culture war rhetoric. 

In this conversation, Jeff Pack interviews Alison Barclay, a former school board member at TVUSD, about the controversial anti-CRT resolution passed by the then-TVUSD board majority in 2022. They discuss the implications of this resolution, the subsequent lawsuit (Mae vs. Komrosky) and impending possible seven-figure settlement, and the educational consequences for the district.

The recent release of a third-party investigation thoroughly discredited Wiersma’s public sexual harassment accusation against fellow Trustee Steven Schwartz. The report from Nicole Miller & Associates found the claim unsubstantiated, inconsistent, and likely driven by political and personal grievances, including Wiersma’s disappointment at not being named board president.

By now, Temecula Valley Unified School District families have come to expect all flash, no substance from Board Members Jen Wiersma and Joe Komrosky. But their latest batch of resolutions makes one thing clearer than ever: Wiersma and Komrosky are more interested in fueling a culture war than preparing students for the real world.

As the failures mounted—court losses, rescinded policies, wasted taxpayer dollars—Temecula Valley Unified trustees Jen Wiersma and Joseph Komrosky didn’t accept responsibility.

They attacked.

Not the policies or the process or the facts.

They attacked their colleagues.

Wiersma’s role as a school board trustee is to improve student outcomes, ensure legal compliance, and be a responsible steward of public funds. Instead, she continues to wage a personal culture war rooted in misinformation and grievance politics.