At Senator Ruben S. Ayala Senior High School in Chino Hills, students this semester complained of broken air conditioners and bathroom sinks, faulty Chromebooks and Wi-Fi and, in one classroom, a ceiling leak that dripped into a bucket by a teacher’s desk as rats scurried across the floor.
But recently, school administrators dealt with a different in-classroom issue: the appearance of 4-by-6-inch rainbow-pattern note cards imprinted with the phrase “safe space.” Some teachers saw the cards as a way to show support to LGBTQ+ students. But school leaders said they went against a district ban on non-American flags, including rainbow ones, a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride. The cards are now gone.
The incident reflects the ongoing tensions inside the Chino Valley Unified School District 37 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, where a conservative board has for two years faced both praise and scorn as a relentless fighter in education culture wars, including “parental notification” issues, book bans and other polices that involve LGBTQ+ students.