Why this matters
Culture wars have plagued school districts across the country, and Encinitas is no exception. The parents hope that through educating others they can combat divisions and increase engagement.
Like many parents, Bill Shen had never been to a school board meeting.
Now, the parent of three Capri Elementary School students is one of about 20 parents who attend sometimes dry, often hours-long Encinitas Union School Board meetings and post Instagram reel recaps that say: “Last night I attended the EUSD board meeting so you didn’t have to.”
With American parents busier than ever and U.S. schools a focal point of the culture wars, Shen said the goal of the Parents of EUSD Instagram account is to “make sure that parents have a voice, that we have good, strong public schools, and that we stand up and support our teachers.”
It could also be a template for parents nationwide to become more involved in their schools.
In a politically active city, where tens of thousands of people follow Instagram accounts like “Save Encinitas Now” and “Encinitas Keepin It’ Real,” these parents take pride in making their faces and names public to promote transparency and trust.
Their Instagram account has 1,819 followers, and the group is proud of the reactions they get on their posts. They came together after parents in the highly regarded, 4,500-student elementary school district witnessed what they say are growing attacks on their beloved school district and its teachers.
Many of them attended their first school board meeting in May 2024.
At that meeting, many parents were upset that a teacher had engaged fifth-graders and kindergartners in an activity involving a book called “My Shadow is Pink,” which explores gender identity. Two sets of parents sued, and a federal judge ruled that the school district had to tell parents about lessons on gender and sexual identity and allow them to opt their children out.
The dispute showed that the Encinitas Union School District was not immune to the cultural wars that have dominated school districts across the country in recent years.
In addition to their online presence, the parents have regular meetings at their homes, keep a group chat going that is never quiet for more than an hour and host frequent community events, all to educate people about the school district and increase engagement.
School board members haven’t just noticed. They’ve embraced it.
“I absolutely love it because that’s the biggest problem I feel like with our whole political process right now,” Encinitas Union School District board member Marlon Taylor said. “There’s so much that’s done without people having a full understanding of how the process works.”
Never miss a meeting
The school board meets monthly in the district’s headquarters and typically begins with a presentation from students. December’s meeting showcased the beanie babies that Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School first graders receive as part of their learner profiles – one student got the “citizenship sloth,” another the “communicative cockatoo.”
After the parents of these children left, the audience in the small room was relatively empty, and the meeting mostly focused on routine matters of board policies, finances and facility upgrades.
But throughout, Parents of EUSD members Farhad Mahmoudi, Victoria Fulton and Olivia Heeren paid attention and took notes. It was their turn in the group’s rotation to create a recap of the meeting for the public.
After the meeting, they wrote their script, ran it by others in the group and edited it into a video.
Among 111 posts since Oct. 11, 2024, Parents of EUSD has shared numerous meeting recaps and posts on school board candidates, how to volunteer and even a video of kids talking about why they love fall — it’s really pretty when the leaves change color, one kindergartner noted.
Research shows that parental school engagement can strengthen educational outcomes, so the school district has welcomed the involvement.
“We appreciate the efforts of the Parents of EUSD group in their efforts to keep the community informed and connected to what’s happening around the school district,” EUSD spokesperson Lucy Finlayson said.
Not all parents see schools the same way, though.
Carlos Encinas, one of the parents who filed the lawsuit, said he thinks families should have the freedom and ability to opt out of things they found offensive.
In an interview with Liberty Institute, which represented the family in the lawsuit, Encinas said the activity was “absolutely against our Christian faith.”
“We were shocked when our fifth grade son came home from school and he told us that he was forced to participate in an activity with his kindergarten buddy involving gender ideology,” he said.
Encinas added that when he asked the school if the family could opt out of future lessons, it not only denied the request but made them feel like they were “part of the problem.” Afterwards, Encinas said his two sons were bullied so bad that they switched schools.
School board politics
Moms for Liberty, a national group that campaigns against teaching subjects about gender and sexual identity and has challenged many books in schools, has become more prominent across the country with supporters in the audience and in some cases elected to the school board.
In Encinitas, former Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller was one of the most vocal critics of the district’s use of “My Shadow is Pink.” She received national attention during the 2009 Miss USA pageant when she said marriage should be between a man and a woman and she now sits on President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission.
She posted a video to her Instagram in May of her at the Encinitas school board, where she said the district was indoctrinating students, and that Christians and others objected.
“What you are doing has no place in this city,” she said of teaching the book.
Parents of EUSD member Meenal Patel said she was shocked by that meeting. She moved to Encinitas because of its rigorous academics and its progressive leanings. But while students continue to perform well — math scores were more than twice the state average in the most recent year of testing, for example — Republican voter registration is increasing.
“We want to make sure that the school board stays the way we always kind of expected it to stay,” Patel said.
Getting people to care
Parents of EUSD emerged during the last election for school board candidates and also urged a “vote yes on Z” effort to help pass a November 2024 ballot measure that provided a $158.3 million bond to the school district for building upgrades.
Members said it was hard to get people to care about such races where voter turnout can be low and school bureaucracies tough to crack. School board seats are technically nonpartisan, but elections can turn on political matters.
“It’s hard for your average person who is not in touch with the schools to know what’s going on,” Parents of EUSD member Brad Lefkowits said.
Two of the three candidates they advocated for, Tom Morton and Marlon Taylor, won. Another was defeated by someone they had criticized, Monica Lee.
Lee, a former teacher in the district, called the group’s accusations – that she and others were “supported by anti-LGBT crusaders coordinating to unseat current trustees to drive their own religious and political agendas into the public school system” – “political smear tactics.”
She said those claims “were completely unfounded and had no basis in fact.” In an email to inewsource, she said, “As a teacher with over 18 years of experience and the only parent of current EUSD students on the board, my decisions are grounded in direct experience and improving the quality of education for our students. My focus remains on keeping the work centered on students and families, not political distractions.”
The members of Parents of EUSD said their focus is less political issues and culture wars than student success. Their involvement, they said, has taught them a lot.
When they spoke to inewsource in December, Shen was concerned about internet safety, Patel was appreciative about the social and emotional learning that the district teaches young students and Mahmoudi was excited about the future.
“What we’re doing is important from a community building standpoint, so that people can have local connections to understand what’s going on in public education in our little community,” he said.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
