Image Credit:
Nick Pardue
Since 2020, a national movement led by angry parents has swept across the country demanding change in local public schools - and that movement has now come to Murrieta.
For the past several years, Murrieta residents have increasingly voiced concerns about the declining quality of education in their local schools — as well as the decision by state and local school officials to utilize controversial curriculum in the classroom that many say is being driven by a political agenda.
Murrieta Valley Unified School District board meetings used to draw sparse attendance, but now parents and concerned citizens are turning out in record numbers to the meetings. Attendees say their concerns are being completely ignored by the incumbent school board members.
In recent meetings, parents have expressed concerns that district staff have embraced a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” agenda that is linked to the use of Critical Race Theory and the teaching of gender identity concepts in kindergarten through third grade.
The school district is also being accused of financial mismanagement for allowing operating and overhead expenses to skyrocket beyond a sustainable level. Worse, the percentage of the budget allocated to “administrative/district office” expenses continues to outpace limited funding going directly to the classroom.
The growing discontent with the school district has led concerned residents to take action — by running against the incumbent school board members in the upcoming 2022 election.
Nick Pardue and Courtney Cooper have stepped forward to run and are working together as a team even though they are running in separate trustee areas.
They pledge a “back-to-the-basics” approach on curriculum, respect for parental and community input in school district decisions, and prudent financial reform to cut wasteful overhead spending and get more resources into the classroom.
They also pledge to make it a board policy to require Murrieta schools to continue to utilize letter grades for evaluating student academic performance — a move to rebuff efforts by state government bureaucrats who propose to eliminate all letter grades in school districts.
The effort to eliminate letter grades in Murrieta schools has been widely criticized by school watchdogs as a thinly veiled attempt to reduce transparency and accountability.
Pardue and Cooper are already winning backing of key groups — including Reform California which has made supporting reform-minded school board candidates a top priority in the 2022 elections.
“Parents from all political backgrounds are fed up with declining quality of public schools and the controversial and politicized curriculum being brought into the classroom,” notes Carl DeMaio, Chairman of Reform California.
“The pledges made by Pardue and Cooper reflect the kind of changes that parents have long been demanding in schools — and that is why we proudly endorse them for the Murrieta Valley Unified School District,” DeMaio declared.
Nick Pardue
Nick Pardue is running for MVUSD Area 1. As an economics and history teacher, he is devoted to protecting the future of the children in his district. Pardue also believes in the Constitution and parental rights, and he wishes to improve academic standards in the classroom and in the school district.
“We stand to lose the foundations of the world we knew, the world we imagined for our families if we do nothing,” says Pardue. “What you see all around you are the many standing up to get involved saying, ‘not on our watch’.”
To learn more, visit: Nick Pardue for MVUSD School Board
Courtney Cooper
Courtney Cooper is a nurse practitioner running for MVUSD Area 2. Cooper says her children in middle school have been subjected to critical race theory and gender ideology.
“I’m tired of it,” said Cooper. “This is America. You’re free to do what you want. However, it goes against my values and beliefs.”
Cooper said she wishes to help keep the school system doing what it is intended to do: teaching kids the basics.
.jpg)
.jpg)
