WATSONVILLE >> A contract to provide consulting and training for an ethnic studies curriculum at Pajaro Valley Unified School District high schools — an issue at the forefront of school board meetings since its lack of renewal in 2023 — is back.

Presented with three options for a new ethnic studies consultant contract, the board unanimously voted at its Wednesday meeting to restore its agreement with Community Responsive Education, which the district had previously contracted with from 2021 to 2023. The board also voted 4-3 to use one consultant, Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez, in the district in some way, namely presentations in schools.

Community Responsive Education is a for-profit consultant firm founded by San Francisco State University professor Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales and other ethnic studies instructors.

“Through CRE, leaders and their organizations can develop their capacity and agency to become more responsive to the needs of the communities that they serve,” according to the firm’s website. “Our services include curriculum development, leadership coaching and training, pedagogical/methodological development workshops that include storytelling, critical performance, and participatory action research.”

With California becoming the first state in the nation to require high schoolers to take at least one semester of ethnic studies to graduate starting in the 2026-27 academic year, the board approved a contract with Community Responsive Education in 2021 to provide training and consultation for ethnic studies teachers at the district’s three comprehensive high schools. When the contract returned for a one-year extension in 2023, the board did not move it forward. The matter returned before the board’s Agenda Setting Committee that November, and the committee voted 2-1 to not place the item on a future agenda, with then-Trustees Georgia Acosta and Kim De Serpa voting to remove the item and then-Trustee Jennifer Holm dissenting.

The reason for rejecting the contract renewal was apparently due to allegations that the Community Responsive Education curriculum was antisemitic, claims that appear to stem from a rejected framework presented to the California Department of Education, which Tintiangco-Cubales co-signed. It was criticized by the California Legislative Jewish Caucus for lacking meaningful discussion of the Jewish experience and having minimal mentions of the Holocaust and hate crimes against Jews. Tintiangco-Cubales has denied allegations of antisemitism in the material.

For the next year and a half, teachers, students, parents and other community members showed up at board meetings to urge the board to bring the contract back. That moment came Wednesday when the board was presented with three options for a contract: Community Responsive Education, Campbell-based curriculum consultant Rodriguez and Boston-based nonprofit Facing History and Ourselves.

“Our goal is to provide a balanced approach to supporting our (ethnic studies) program that is inclusive of all voices in our community,” said Claudia Monjaras, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

Thus, Monjaras said the district recommended approving all three contracts. However, most speakers supported the district solely renewing its contract with Community Responsive Education, emphasizing that it had already been in place in the district and the other consultants had not been as thoroughly vetted.

Gabriel Barraza, co-founder of Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice, said Facing History and Ourselves was not an organization that dealt with ethnic studies but “history with a slant toward discussion of multicultural education.”

“They emphasize civil discourse,” he said. “That is fundamentally at odds with deconstructing systems of power.”

Barraza said he admired Rodriguez’s work in archiving and raising awareness of the Latino and Chicano community, but he also felt it did not fit the definition of ethnic studies.

“Ethnic studies is about empowering communities of color that have been historically marginalized,” he said.

These sentiments were echoed by Aptos resident and co-director of the Asian American Justice and Innovation Lab, Nat Low, who emphasized that Tintiangco-Cubales had more than 20 years of experience in ethnic studies.

“CRE has been thoroughly vetted prior to this contract coming up tonight,” they said. “It’s proven itself with great results for two years, the teachers and the students love it, the board reviewed it and approved it twice, Allyson met with our community, she met with multiple board members and none of the board members have said that she’s antisemitic.”

However, some speakers claimed that Community Responsive Education promoted a divisive curriculum.

“It’s essential to reject this one-sided, discriminatory approach to ethnic studies,” said Rabbi Debbie Israel.

Physician and La Selva Beach resident Roz Shorenstein took issue with the price tag. Community Responsive Education’s proposal was estimated to cost $90,000, including money for leadership committee development, ethnic studies teacher development and classroom walk-through protocol. By contrast, Facing History and Rodriguez’s proposals were estimated at $4,550 and $26,440, respectively.

“CRE charges $90,000 and promotes the liberated ethnic studies curriculum that California rejected,” she said. “What kids should learn in ethnic studies is to appreciate the factual history of their complex identities and to respect others.”

Trustee Jessica Carrasco, herself a former ethnic studies teacher who contributed to developing the district’s ethnic studies curriculum, disputed the characterization of Community Responsive Education’s consultation framework as divisive or hateful, stressing that the goal was to promote the opposite.

“I would never teach (students) to repeat things that I myself experienced,” she said. “I would never teach them to disrespect anybody due to their identities. I became an ethnic studies teacher because I want to guide others, and instead of taking something that caused a lot of trauma for you, turn around and make something positive. That’s why I’m sitting here.”

Trustee Joy Flynn also disagreed with the characterization.

“Are we looking at the same pedagogy?” she asked. “I truly believe that there is no educator in PVUSD that is taking this training that would allow any erosion of dignity of any human being in their classroom under any circumstances.”

The board unanimously voted to approve the contract with Community Responsive Education. Trustee Daniel Dodge Jr. made a separate motion to work with Rodriguez on some level, particularly when it came to teaching the histories of Latin American and Filipino American farmworkers in the Pajaro Valley.

“I believe our histories are tied together,” he said.

The board voted 4-3 to approve Dodge’s motion, with Carrasco, Flynn and Trustee Gabriel Medina voting against. Medina made another motion to censure De Serpa, now a Santa Cruz County supervisor, for “denying our community the proper research and vetting of the curriculum.”

“She caused a lot of damage doing that, and look at all the people that had to show up night after night after night after week,” he said.

This motion was denied 4-3 with Carrasco, Dodge and Medina voting in favor.

However, another motion by Medina for the district to officially apologize to Tintiangco-Cubales on behalf of the board passed unanimously, as an amendment to a resolution recognizing May as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

In other business, trustees unanimously approved an amendment to the board’s bylaws that would allow student trustees to make motions on any item except those pertaining to employee-employer relations.