WATSONVILLE >> Four of the six candidates in this year’s Pajaro Valley Unified School District board election answered questions about issues facing the district in a candidate forum hosted in the Landmark Elementary School cafeteria Monday evening.

The forum featured Area 2 candidate Carol Turley, a certified community manager; Area 3 candidate Gabriel Medina, associate professor in Cabrillo College’s Digital Media Department; Area 6 candidate Jessica Carrasco, a local artist and former Watsonville High School teacher; and sitting Trustee Adam Bolaños Scow, who was appointed to the position last year following Maria Orozco’s election to the Watsonville City Council. Incumbent trustees Georgia Acosta and Oscar Soto, who represent Area 2 and 3 respectively and are running for additional terms, were reportedly invited to participate but declined.

The forum was hosted by the Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice Coalition, a group formed this year in the wake of the school board’s 2023 decision not to renew the district’s contract with Community Responsive Education, which provided an ethnic studies curriculum at the district’s three comprehensive high schools. While the district still offers an ethnic studies curriculum, the specific contract with Community Responsive Education — a for-profit consultant firm founded by San Francisco State University professor Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales and other ethnic studies instructors — was rejected for a one-year extension, with the board instead voting to bring the item back with another consultant.

When the matter went before the board’s Agenda Setting Committee on Nov. 2, the committee voted 2-1 to not place the item on a future agenda, with Trustees Acosta and Kim De Serpa voting not to put it on the agenda and Trustee Jennifer Holm dissenting. The reason for rejecting the contract renewal apparently was due to allegations that the Community Responsive Education curriculum was antisemitic, a claim that Tintiangco-Cubales has denied. The claims appear to stem from a rejected framework that was presented to the California Department of Education, which Tintiangco-Cubales co-signed, that was criticized by the California Legislative Jewish Caucus for lacking meaningful discussion of the Jewish experience and antisemitism. The issue has led to the public comment sessions at school board meetings largely being dominated by requests to restore the curriculum.

Gabriel Barazza, coalition co-founder and district parent, said the Pajaro Valley has a history of activism, from the Watsonville Cannery strike of 1985 to 1987 to the fight to switch elections from at-large — which he said were barriers to minorities from serving in local government — to district-based, as they are today.

“We are a strong community but one that has been largely ignored by those who hold power locally and even throughout the county,” he said. “The community of Watsonville, at various times in the history of Watsonville, has had to rise up and demand that their voices be heard.”

Barrazza said it was important for the board and its candidates to be responsive and have open discussions with the community, which is what Monday’s forum was all about. The first question was about the very subject that led to the formation of the coalition in the first place: the renewal of the Community Responsive Education contract. Scow said he was comfortable with the contract but felt it did not have the support of the board majority. He was still appreciative of the coalition for engaging the district.

“If something changes and the votes are allowed, then I believe it will pass,” he said. “I’m totally committed to that.”

Medina said he would fight to get it on the Agenda Setting Committee.

“Knowing about your history, where you come from, is so important,” he said. “I remember growing up in this district and not really liking who I was because I wasn’t told my history, where my people were from. I was othered. I was told that Spanish was bad, and for someone with limited vocabulary, you internalize those words. I thought I was bad. I thought my family was bad because we spoke Spanish, and I do not want the future generation of Watsonville to have to carry that burden.”

Turley said it was important to have an unbiased discussion of history, even the parts that may be uncomfortable.

“It’s painful, and I understand that, but I also understand the importance of understanding who we are,” she said.

Carrasco said she was bullied as a student at Aptos High School over her race and ended up becoming an ethnic studies teacher as a result.

“What ethnic studies did to me was take that anger away and give me an action plan on how to change that for the next generations,” she said.

The candidates were also asked what measures they would take to ensure students and the community were heard. Turley said she felt the board was not currently giving the public enough time to speak on certain issues, and she would push to put standing items on the agenda for multiple meetings and have the board vote on items they would like to have heard within the next three meetings rather than an Agenda Setting Committee.

“There needs to be more effort put in to reaching out to people to put in suggestions that, for whatever reason, aren’t going to end up on the agenda about what the issues are and trying to get more information,” she said. “Sometimes it’s an issue that could be addressed if somebody just talked to people and listened.”

Medina suggested creating an application where students and parents can have input on items after the agendas are set.

“Most students have a phone, most parents have a phone,” he said. “Why are we making it harder for parents to get to meetings, advocate for their students when we know they’re just barely getting out of work?”

Scow said that the way laws are written, the board president and superintendent have the most power in what goes on an agenda. However, he said there was a proposal last year to cut visual arts teachers, and he was able to fight to put a discussion on the agenda.

“I think it is not a good idea to hide anything from the board, from the public,” he said. “When the community wants something on the agenda, we will bring that to the agenda.”

Carrasco said students and the community should be allowed to do evaluations of board members like schools do with teachers.

“It is useful, and it does make you question ‘Am I serving the way I should?’” she said.

Members of the audience also got to ask questions, one of which asked the candidates what they would do to ensure safety for LGBTQ+ students. Medina, who is a part of the community, said he would be a major champion.

“We need to allow students to be who they are, and we also need to protect them when we have conservatives coming in with a political agenda that are telling our students that they should not be here,” he said. “They should be hearing that they are loved, that they are normal and that there’s nothing wrong with them.”

Carrasco said she would support by leading and encouraging allyship.

“All of us need to take part in that and maybe educate those who don’t know how to be allies because I know that there are a lot of leaders in the schools that want to do it but are a little unsure of how to do that,” she said.