WATSONVILLE >> The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board Trustees will consider Wednesday whether or not to bring back a contract with Community Responsive Education to provide consultation on teaching ethnic studies or to choose a different agreement from one of two other organizations.

The district will present its three options to the board which will determine which of the three contracts will come back to the board May 7 for a final vote.

In 2021, California became 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. That same year, the Pajaro Valley school board approved a contract with Community Responsive Education, a for-profit consultant firm founded by San Francisco State University professor Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales and other ethnic studies instructors, to provide guidelines for ethnic studies curricula at the district’s three high schools.

However, when the contract returned to the board for a one-year extension in 2023, the board did not move it forward, and a later decision to place it on a future agenda was defeated 2-1 in the agenda-setting committee.

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 that was 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 anti-Semitism in the material, as have other proponents of the Community Responsive Education.

The decision led to packed boardrooms throughout 2024 with community members urging the contract be brought back, and the contract became a hot-button issue in that year’s election where all three sitting trustees who ran for additional terms lost their seats.

In recent weeks, the district has taken up the matter again. A special study session on the district’s ethnic studies program was held March 28, and board members hosted two different town halls: one with Board President Olivia Flores, Vice President Misty Navarro and Trustee Joy Flynn at Aptos High School April 1, and another with trustees Jessica Carrasco, Gabriel Medina and Carol Turley at Watsonville High School April 2.

Now the district is presenting three ethnic studies contracts to the board: Community Responsive Education, Boston-based nonprofit Facing History and Ourselves and Campbell-based curriculum consultant Dr. Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez. The district also reached out to the Center for Responsive Schools and Hartnell College ethnic studies professor Corina Vasure, but both turned down the requests.

The selected contractors would be tasked with developing an ethnic studies site leadership group, district-level professional development series for onboarding ethnic studies teachers, local and historical resources to connect to instructional lessons and an ethnic studies community committee consisting of district ethnic studies educators and community members with a wide range of experiences connected to ethnic studies. The contract would be in place for the 2025-26 academic year and funded through the California Department of Education’s Anti-Bias Education Grant.

In other business, the board will consider a sunshine proposal for the California School Employees Association for the 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27 academic years.

The board will meet publicly at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the district office boardroom, 294 Green Valley Road, Watsonville. A closed session will precede the regular meeting at 4:30 p.m.