Newsom Ups Ante in Clash With School Boards

Millions of California children headed back to school over the last two weeks with high hopes for a new academic year, reuniting with friends and classmates and acclimating to new teachers and lessons.

In many areas of the state, however, they are doing so as tensions mount in an ongoing culture war. The war of words between Gov. Gavin Newsom, state education officials, and several local school boards over curriculum and parental notification of students’ gender transitions intensified over the summer.

On Monday, 150 parents opposed to some state LGBTQ-oriented and sex-related public school curricula and other issues marched from City Hall to the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters, where two counter-protestors were arrested after heated clashes between the two groups.

Another group of concerned parents and conservative school board officials held a rally at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Monday to fight against a host of bills they say are aimed at intimidating parents and crushing local control of schools.