From the start, the three conservative board members of the Temecula Valley Unified School District made clear where they stood. On the same night in December 2022 that they were sworn in as a majority, they passed a resolution banning critical race theory from classrooms in their Southern California district.

Months later, they abruptly fired the superintendent, saying they believed the district needed someone with new ideas. After that, they passed a rule requiring that parents be notified whenever a student requests to be identified as a different gender at school.

The moves were applauded by conservatives, many of them Christian churchgoers who had helped to install the new board members, hoping that Temecula Valley could remain an island of traditional values in a liberal state.

But this once rural area, about 60 miles northeast of San Diego, had transformed in recent decades into a diverse bedroom community, and many other families grew frustrated by what they considered to be the unwelcome incursion of national culture wars into their prized public schools.

That backlash came to a head this month when voters recalled Joseph Komrosky, a military veteran and community college professor who had been the school board president since that December night. Mr. Komrosky’s ouster was made official on Thursday evening.

“People are moving here so they can put their kids in the school district,” said Jeff Pack, whose One Temecula Valley PAC led the recall effort. “They don’t want all this partisan political warfare, this culture war stuff getting in the way.”

Across California, conservative board members elected as part of the same wave that swept Mr. Komrosky and his colleagues into office are facing similar recall efforts.

In March, two conservative board members in Orange County were recalled for supporting policies similar to the ones enacted by the Temecula Valley board. The same month, a trustee backed by a Moms for Liberty group in a district outside Sacramento was ousted after she called transgender identity “a social contagion.” Next month, voters in a tiny district in the Bay Area will decide whether to remove two conservative board members.

There were no school board recalls on a ballot in California last year, according to Joshua Spivak, a senior research fellow at the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law who closely tracks recalls nationwide. The similarly themed recalls against conservatives in California this year are unusual, he said, because in the past, most ouster attempts were driven by a specific local conflict.

“This is a hot-button issue that voters are very engaged on,” he said.

Temecula, like many communities in inland California, has grown in recent decades by attracting an array of families priced out of cities closer to the coast. (In 1990, Temecula’s population was 27,099, according to census data. In 2023, it was about 110,700.)

The city is within commute distance to northern San Diego County, where there are large military installations and tech companies, as well as southern Orange County and Riverside. Separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Santa Ana Mountains, Temecula is a particular destination for young parents seeking bigger homes than they can get in the pricier coastal suburbs — without sacrificing access to top-tier public schools.

But the politics there are far from settled. The recall barely passed, with 51 percent voting to recall Mr. Komrosky and 49 percent against. Only 212 votes out of 9,714 separated the two sides.

It was close enough that Mr. Komrosky said that he would most likely run for the seat again in November.

“My commitment to protecting the innocence of our children in Temecula schools remains unwavering,” he said in a statement.

Mr. Komrosky and two conservative colleagues were elected to the Temecula Valley Unified board in November 2022 amid a wave of efforts by like-minded groups to elect school board members across California. Many conservatives believed their resources were better spent trying to influence local schools to join a national “parental rights” movement than trying to elect legislators or statewide leaders in Democratic-dominated California.

Of the three Temecula Valley Unified board members elected in 2022, only Jennifer Wiersma, who describes herself as a faith-motivated “advocate for parental rights,” remains; the other conservative board member, Danny Gonzalez, stepped down in December to move to Texas. His seat is vacant.

Supporters of Mr. Komrosky and the board’s majority blamed the state’s political establishment and labor unions for his ouster. They said that conservatives on school boards who had tried to limit the teaching of L.G.B.T.Q. history and add notification requirements for children’s gender identification had done so to protect the rights of parents.

The conservative bloc at Temecula Valley angered Democratic state leaders last year when they refused to approve a social studies curriculum that mentioned Harvey Milk, the slain gay rights pioneer — whom Mr. Komrosky had called a “pedophile.” They later changed course after Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to fine the district $1.5 million.

“It’s saddening and frightening that good people are targeted for standing up for parent involvement and common sense for the betterment of our children’s education,” said Sonja Shaw, an outspoken conservative activist who leads the Chino Valley Unified School District board, not far from Temecula. The Chino Valley district is currently embroiled in a legal fight against the state to defend its parental notification policy.

Leaders of the campaign to recall Mr. Komrosky said that parents in Temecula — and across California — had long taken for granted that school boards generally focus on the mundane work of maintaining school buildings, recruiting strong teachers and making sure after-school programs run smoothly. Now, many said the actions of the new board had snapped them back to attention.

Mr. Pack said he started the One Temecula Valley PAC in 2022 to recruit candidates for nonpartisan local offices, including the Temecula City Council, where he felt recently elected officials were using their positions to make national political statements rather than focus on local government affairs. He cited one Temecula City Council member who tried to make the city a “sanctuary” for the unborn, even though abortion is legal in California and cities can’t ban the procedure.

He said he quickly found that ousting school board members was a top priority for many parents, who felt that the group, under Mr. Komrosky’s leadership, had racked up unnecessary legal bills and strayed from the mission of educating students.

In one recent case, the district agreed to pay $75,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by two residents whom Mr. Komrosky had removed from school board meetings because he said they were disruptive. The residents claimed that he had violated their free speech rights; lawyers for one of them, Upneet Dhaliwal, said in a complaint that Mr. Komrosky asserted that her questioning of the superintendent hiring process was off topic.

Ms. Dhaliwal, 42, moved in 2022 from San Diego to Temecula with her husband and daughter, who will be an eighth grader in the district. When they were looking for a new community, Temecula fit the bill on their two main requirements: good schools and affordable housing.

Ms. Dhaliwal said she had never so much as called her daughter’s teacher in San Diego, where “usually an email would solve any issue.” But after seeing Temecula in the news for defying the state’s social studies curriculum, she decided to attend the meeting in which the board fired the superintendent. She grew alarmed.

“I came back home,” she said, “and recall seemed like the only option.”

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But supporters hoping to get one initiative before voters in November took issue with what Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta named their would-be state law: “Restricts Rights of Transgender Youth.”

Under the proposed initiative, schools in the state would be required to notify parents if their child (anyone under 18) changes their gender identification unofficially, such as in conversation with friends or teachers, or in school records, like a roll sheet.

The initiative would also prohibit gender-affirming healthcare for transgender patients under 18, “even if parents consent or treatment is medically recommended,” according to the official summary of the initiative published by Bonta’s office. It also would repeal current state law that allows transgender athletes to participate in sports and use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.

The initiative’s backers have sued the state over the title, calling it “misleading, false, and prejudicial.”

“They said a title that includes ‘protecting students’ could appeal to voters,” Times education reporter Howard Blume wrote this week. “One that focuses on limiting an individual’s rights might not.”

The pending lawsuit is among “several high-profile legal jousts in California’s education culture wars over policies that have taken hold mostly in a few deep red, inland or rural areas,” Howard noted.

Parental notification and bathroom bans are not the only issues. Restrictions have been placed on library books, as well as curriculum that highlights the nation’s history of slavery, racial inequities and LGBTQ+ issues. That drew the attention of Gov. Gavin Newsom, along with the state’s education department and attorney general, who threatened legal action against school boards in recent months. Some of those threats became lawsuits.

“Now, opposing sides are facing off in courtrooms with broad implications for state and local school policies,” Howard reported.

How we got here

The current legal battles are simply the latest salvo in an ideological battle that’s been playing out in school boards across the state.

The core of the issue is not new; it’s just the latest iteration of the long-running debate over the role of public education and how much influence parents should have over that system.

2023 survey data from Pew Research Center show that these partisan rifts have widened in recent years, with a majority of Republicans saying K-12 education is having a negative effect on the U.S.

Fueled by that dissatisfaction, conservative activists and school board members are focusing on local school boards, raising money to fund candidates who share their views on transgender issues and parental notification. And they’ve seen some political gains.

As Times reporters chronicled last year, the local-level political maneuverings are part of a well-coordinated effort backed by national conservative groups. That includes California Policy Center, Moms for Liberty, the Leadership Institute, Turning Point USA and evangelical megachurches.

But as several school boards passed parental notification policies aimed at gender-nonconforming students, the state pushed back, arguing they violate students’ privacy rights.

Protection or persecution?

One ongoing case is between the state and Chino Valley Unified, where the district’s parent-notification policy was initially deemed discriminatory against transgender students. In response, the Chino Valley Board of Education revised the policy by broadening it so that parents of any student would be notified of requests for a “change to their official or unofficial records.” A hearing for that case is set for May.

Chino Valley district leaders also approved a policy that allows parents to report books they deem unsuitable because of sexual content. The book would then be removed pending a public hearing to decide if it should be banned.

Conservatives call efforts like these necessary to protect young children from sexually explicit and profane materials. But what some call protection, others call erasure and persecution. Those opposed to the conservative-led policies say they amount to racism and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry and will lead to more marginalization and harm for children.

“The people screaming for ‘parental rights’ are trying to take rights away from my kids while telling me how to raise them,” Kristi Hirst, leader of the Chino-based Our Schools USA, told Howard.

Similar battles over transgender student policies and restrictions on books and curriculum are raging in school districts across the state, including in Orange, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino, Shasta and Placer counties.

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