.png)
“It’s bad leadership—bad leadership on their part,” said Mayor Valerie Amezcua. “And who pays the price at the end of the day? Our children.”
If Orange County School districts were eligible for awards, then Santa Ana Unified would undoubtedly deserve one for having had the most tumultuous year. Amid multiple high profile lawsuits and allegations of everything from antisemitism to abuse of special needs students, it’s one controversy after another at SAUSD as of late. Throw in mass layoffs and a crumbling budget—but also massive payoffs for consultants and superintendents—and you may begin to see why there have been serious discussions about whether or not SAUSD should forfeit its financial authority to the Orange County Board of Education.
This article serves as a primer to several of the biggest controversies plaguing SAUSD in recent months.
Ethnic Studies or Antisemitism?
You may have caught wind of the news that SAUSD recently reached a settlement with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Southern Californians for Unbiased Education. It’s a story that has attracted national attention and no small degree of scrutiny.
It began in 2023 when the Anti-Defamation League identified curricula in a SAUSD ethnic studies course which contained “antisemitic and unlawfully biased content.” Furthermore, members of SAUSD’s Ethnic Studies Steering Committee reportedly made comments like “we don't need to give both sides; we only support the oppressed, and Jews are the oppressors,” and made violations of both the Brown Act and other California open meeting laws. It prompted a lawsuit.
Last year, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx and Representative Michelle Steel stated their belief that the Committee actively sought to evade public input. “At multiple meetings spanning the spring of 2023, the SAUSD Ethnic Studies Steering Committee took collective action that deliberately excluded members of the school district’s Jewish community from involvement in constructing an ethnic studies curriculum. This likely violated California state law,” they wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
The curriculum in question came from Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO), an “urban education consulting collective” providing “decolonial ethnic studies.” In prior reporting by SoCal Daily Pulse, we documented XITO’s past claims that Jews control the United States and founder Sean Acre’s Twitter/X account which he uses to share violent images celebrating Palestinian terror attacks and Iranian government propaganda.
Of the 12 courses approved for ethnic studies credit at SAUSD, there are eight covering issues of identity for Black, Asian, Chicano, Latino/a, Indigenous Nations, and Arab/Muslim Americans. There are also modules for LBGTQ+, but none covering Jewish history and identity despite meeting the requirements for a historically marginalized group. One Global History course makes only two passing references to the Holocaust: one from a UCLA website that summarizes the events WWII and one from Genocide Watch that lists the “Top Ten Worst Genocides in History.”
The Holocaust is listed as Number Three.
The high profile lawsuit wasn’t enough to prevent XTIO from getting their lucrative consulting contract renewed the following year. In August 2024, SAUSD agreed to pay XITO $80,633 for 11 days to train SAUSD staff on the ethnic studies curriculum.
But, in the coming months, the tides began to turn. Some combination of public embarrassment, threats of expensive litigation, settlement talks, and a new Presidential administration setting its sights on political activists in public schools led SAUSD to drop three of its ethnic studies courses and agree to start the process anew next fall—this time, in a more transparent and (hopefully) less candidly political fashion.
But to believe that’s the end of the story is, unfortunately, wishful thinking.
“As a newly elected board member, I am grateful for the agreed settlement, but I do not think the issue is totally solved,” said SAUSD Board Member Brenda Lebsack. “Due to ‘academic freedom’ policies, it is difficult to monitor supplemental materials brought in by teachers and to assure both sides of controversial issues are presented. I have requested our ‘controversial issue’ policy be tightened up with language that includes increased accountability and greater oversight by school site administrators. I think this is a reasonable request in order to help prevent costly allegations or litigations of bias in the future.”
Mass Layoffs & “Bad Fiscal Decisions”
It is ironic—or perhaps coincidental—that a conversation about cushy consulting contracts is followed by one about how, financially, SAUSD is in dire straits.
We previously covered SAUSD’s decision to eliminate around 500 positions in light of a massive $187 million budget deficit. Something we did not mention is that the board also looked at a proposal to give Superintendent Jerry Almendarez a 3% salary raise and 3% bonus. Almendarez makes more than $447,000 annually.
Eventually, that proposal was struck down in fear of optics. But the fact remains that SAUSD pays a great deal of money in administrative bloat. While teachers, counselors, and coaches are losing their jobs, Almendarez enjoys almost half a billion a year and an Arizona-based consultant (XITO) can get paid roughly $7,330 per day to oversee the implementation of shoddy ethnic studies courses.
“It’s bad leadership—bad leadership on their part,” Mayor Valerie Amezcua told NBCLA. “And who pays the price at the end of the day? Our children. Our children and our families.”
Associate Superintendent for Business Services Ron Hacker blames the drying up of COVID relief funds—and not poor financial decisions—for the poor state of the district: “The impact of the pandemic really hit us hard… And it may be a little bit deeper than other districts, but all districts are facing this.”
While it’s true that around 70% of public school districts in California are facing declining enrollment, not everyone is hemorrhaging students and teachers quite like SAUSD. Only one of 32 can lead Orange County in the rate of decline, and that distinguished honor goes to SAUSD.
“If school officials cannot properly plan or manage money, they have no business leading our children,” one community member told SoCal Daily Pulse. “I have had enough of their procrastination and excuses.”
Alleged Student Abuse
The ADL lawsuit was not the only legal challenge SAUSD faced last year. In May 2024, a troubling video emerged which seems to show a Carver Elementary School teacher yelling and mocking children inside a special needs classroom. The teacher, Maylin Hsu can be seen pointing and tapping metal scissors—with the blade facing the child she is admonishing.
The identity of the child is now publicly known, but the classroom the child was in is a mixed third, fourth, and fifth-grade class for “severe autism.”
Worse yet, it was not the first time Hsu had faced accusations of mistreating students. Threats of legal action at another SAUSD school is what brought the teacher to Caver Elementary School in the first place.
“The problem is is that the school district was well aware for many, many years that this teacher had been verbally abusing and neglecting the special needs students of the community,” said attorney Elan Zektser, who represents 6 of 11 the families with students in the class who have sued the school district.
Later in the video, or in another video captured that day, Hsu gets inches away from the face of one student—the 9 year-old son of Angelica Gurrola—and hollers loudly at him in a mocking tone of voice. The student is nonverbal.
"As a mother, it deeply broke my heart,” Gurrola said, holding back tears. “It hurts when I remember it. It will continue to hurt.”
The lawsuit is ongoing and it remains unknown what disciplinary actions have been taken against the teacher in the video. SAUSD has released generic responses acknowledging “the seriousness of the allegations made regarding the behavior of one of our employees which are deeply concerning and contrary to the standards we uphold as a District,” and promising to “remain committed to collaborating with our community to address concerns, support affected families, and reinforce trust in our schools."
If SAUSD wants to reinforce trust in its schools, they have their work cut out for them.
Comments