A newly elected majority-conservative school board in California recently approved a resolution to hire an anti-critical race theory consultant.
On March 13, in a 3-2 decision, Temecula Valley Unified School District voted to allocate $15,000 to anti-CRT initiatives, including hiring a consultant to hold “discussion groups” at an after-school board workshop.
The discussions would cover the history of critical race theory and the board’s December resolution to ban CRT. The district, which enrolls approximately 28,000 students, plans to host six two-hour sessions.
Christopher Arend, former school board president of Paso Robles Joint Unified School District, was hired by the district to host the discussion groups and serve on the workshop’s six-member panel, which will be held at James L. Day Middle School. All of these panelists are reportedly against teaching CRT in classrooms.
While Arend was president at Paso Robles, the district passed a resolution in 2021 banning CRT. He has also written a manuscript for a new book titled “Critical Race Theory Scam.”