Redlands Unified School District · Area 1
Election November 3, 2026
$16–24 million a year,
out of Redlands schools.
That is what the school-voucher measure Dale Broome funded and personally collected 2,113 signatures for would cost this district — every single year. He is asking Area 1 to put him on the board of the schools he spent six years trying to drain.
- $16–24M
- Per year RUSD stands to lose under his voucher measure
- 2,113
- Voucher signatures he recruited, against a goal of 50
- $400,000
- He gave to the voucher campaign; $80,000 more to himself
- 160–240
- Teaching positions that funding gap is equal to
- $60,000+
- He gave to pass Prop 8 and ban same-sex marriage
A school board trustee's job is to defend the district's students and its funding. Broome's own public record is a six-year argument against both: he bankrolled and gathered signatures for a measure the Legislative Analyst's Office says the state would pay for "through reductions to existing funding for public schools," he gave more than $60,000 to pass Proposition 8 and ban same-sex marriage, he testified in Sacramento to keep gay men out of the Boy Scouts, he wrote a $10,000 check to the Area 2 candidate whose challenge emptied Gender Queer from every district library, he recruited the author of Islam Exposed to run alongside him, and he has stood at the RUSD podium 42 times to argue for removing books, for outing students to their parents, and for restricting which flags may hang in a classroom.
Every claim below is documented against a primary source — FPPC campaign disclosures filed with San Bernardino County, the state's own fiscal analysis, the district's board minutes, and text published by Broome and his allies on their own websites. Nothing is paraphrased where a quote exists. On the record he built himself, Dale Broome should not be trusted with Redlands Unified.
01 — The measure he collected signatures for
His vouchers would take $16-24 million a year out of Redlands Unified.
The single largest political expenditure associated with Broome is not his own campaign. It is the California school-voucher initiative — the measure that would let families take their share of state education funding out of the public system and spend it at a private or religious school. He has leadership status in that campaign, he recruited thousands of signatures for it out of his church, and now he is asking to sit on the board of the public district that measure would drain.
What the measure actually does
The Educational Freedom Act would create an Education Savings Account for every K-12 student — roughly $17,500 a year in the current draft — redirectable to "a participating, accredited private or religious school," with unspent money banking toward college. Homeschoolers qualify. There is no requirement that the receiving school admit every applicant, serve students with disabilities on the same terms, or report results to the public.
The state's own analysts: $4.7–$7 billion, paid for by public schools
The Legislative Analyst's Office reviewed this measure for the Attorney General. Its finding: the 555,000 students already in private school or homeschool would enroll first, at an annual state cost of $4.7 to $7 billion — money for students who cost the state nothing today. And the LAO is explicit about where it comes from: "The state generally would pay for these costs through reductions to existing funding for public schools (as the measure allows)."
Translated into Redlands: roughly $16–24 million a year
The LAO puts the hit at 6 to 9 percent of Proposition 98 funding — "$800 to $1,200 per student" — if the state covers the first wave out of school money. Redlands Unified educates about 20,000 students. At that per-student range, RUSD's share of the cut is on the order of $16 million to $24 million every year, before a single Redlands family has left. The LAO says districts would absorb it "probably through a range of actions including reductions to staffing and programs." That is teachers, counselors, aides, music, athletics, and busing.
Why enrollment loss makes it worse, not neutral
California funds districts by average daily attendance. When students leave, the money leaves — but the campus, the roof, the bus route, the special-education obligation and the pension liability stay. A district that loses 10 percent of its students does not get to close 10 percent of its costs. That gap is why school-finance analysts describe voucher programs as a structural drain on the districts left behind, and it lands hardest on the students private schools are least likely to enroll: students with disabilities, English learners, and kids who need transportation.
The statewide Republican strategy behind it
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the Republican plan to use parent anger as a wedge to break up public-school funding in California. The playbook, described by conservative organizers, is to mobilize 'mad moms' around culture-war issues and then redirect public money into private and religious schools. Broome's voucher work, book challenges, and board-meeting speeches fit that pattern exactly.
This is the tension a voter should weigh directly. Broome's ministry page calls homeschooling "the ultimate School Choice." His voucher-campaign comment calls the initiative "the ultimate Opt-Out." He recruited 2,113 signatures to put it on the ballot. A trustee's legal duty is the opposite: to be a fiduciary for Redlands Unified and the 20,000 students in it.
02 — Campaign finance
Who's funding him — and who he funds.
FPPC Form 460 (Original)
Broome 4 School Board 2026 — semi-annual disclosure
Covers 1/1/2026 to 6/30/2026 · Filed 7/6/2026 · Filing ID 216951572
The current-cycle disclosure for Broome's own committee, filed with San Bernardino County. Schedule A lists monetary contributions received; Schedule E lists what the campaign spent.
FPPC Form 460 (Original)
Broome 4 School Board 2026 — prior period disclosure
Covers 8/29/2025 to 12/31/2025 · Filed 1/16/2026 · Filing ID 215336990
The committee's first reporting period, covering the launch of the campaign. Read it alongside the 2026 filing to see how the money changed once the race began.
The ledger
NetFile posts the filings; the numbers below are what the filings and the opposition committee's reading of them show. Two things stand out: this is a self-funded campaign, and Broome's political spending has always been about redirecting money away from public schools.
$80,000 → into his own campaign
Together For Redlands, reading the same Form 460 filings linked above, reports that Broome put $80,000 of his own money into Broome 4 School Board 2026. A school board seat in Area 1 is typically decided on a few thousand ballots and campaign budgets in the low five figures.
Source: Together For Redlands, citing the FPPC filings
$400,000 → to a school-voucher ballot measure
His own biography says he "was a major donor for the Educational Freedom Act of 2022, a school choice ballot initiative sponsored by Californians for School Choice." Together For Redlands puts the figure at $400,000 to what it calls a "failed DEFUND public schools proposition." The measure would have moved public-school dollars into private education savings accounts; it failed to qualify.
Source: Broome's own biography; figure per Together For Redlands
$10,000 → to Maria Montes, Area 2
The semi-annual Form 460 filed by Montes 4 School Board 2026 reports $10,000 from Dale Broome — the single largest share of what that campaign raised. Montes is the Area 2 candidate whose emails to district staff produced a book challenge, a removal from every district library, and a librarian placed on paid administrative leave.
Source: Montes FPPC Form 460, Filing ID 216981396
$5,000 → to Sonja Shaw for State Superintendent
CalMatters lists Dale Broome among the large contributors to Sonja Shaw's 2026 campaign for California Superintendent of Public Instruction. Shaw is the Chino Valley board president whose forced-outing policy was permanently enjoined by a San Bernardino County judge, and she appears on Broome's own endorsement list.
Source: CalMatters — California Voter Guide 2026, Superintendent of Public Instruction
$60,000+ → to Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban
Secretary of State filings show at least $36,000 from Dale Broome to the two committees behind Proposition 8. A separate compilation of FEC and state disclosure records lists additional ProtectMarriage.com and Voteyesmarriage.com contributions from Broome in Redlands during the same 2007-2008 window, pushing the documented total past $60,000. The 2008 measure banned same-sex marriage in California until courts overturned it.
Source: California Secretary of State filings / FEC & state disclosures via OpenDataUSA
Who is standing with him
Together For Redlands states that Broome is "supported by members of the SPLC-designated HATE GROUP – MassResistance," and that he "advocates teaching his religion in public schools" and "wants to erase the stories of minorities from public education." Those are the opposition committee's characterizations, reproduced as theirs and sourced below; the endorsements, affiliations and filings above are his own.
The network he belongs to
Each item is a specific, documented affiliation with the source attached — taken from his own published biographies, not from characterization by anyone else.
CAGOP delegate · Redlands Tea Party Patriots · San Bernardino County Patriots
His own published biography describes him as "a CAGOP delegate and an active member of the Redlands Tea Party Patriots and San Bernardino County Patriots."
Major donor, Educational Freedom Act of 2022 (school vouchers)
The same biography states he "was a major donor for the Educational Freedom Act of 2022, a school choice ballot initiative sponsored by Californians for School Choice" — a measure that would have redirected public-school funding into private education savings accounts.
Board member, Ballot IQ Group · 20 years of initiative signature drives
He is listed as a Board Member of Ballot IQ Group and says he "has circulated and collected signatures for numerous Conservative ballot initiatives over the last 20 years."
Volunteer reviewer, Truth in Textbooks
His campaign biography lists him as a "trained volunteer California textbook reviewer with Truth in Textbooks," an organization that campaigns to change classroom materials.
Endorsements — elected officials
- Rhodes Rigsby — Loma Linda City Councilman
- Ovidiu Popescu — Loma Linda City Councilman
- Penny Lilburn — Mayor, City of Highland
- Larry McCallon — Highland City Councilman
- Sonja Shaw — Chino Valley School Board President; candidate for State Superintendent
- Candy Olson — Redlands USD School Board
- Jeannette Wilson — Redlands USD School Board
- Mike Morrell — California State Senator, Retired
Endorsements — PACs and organizations
- San Bernardino County GOP
- Inland Empire Family PAC
- California Republican Assembly
- Reform California
- Redlands Tea Party Patriots
03 — Eighteen years of the same fight
$60,000+ to ban same-sex marriage — and testimony to keep gay men out of Scouting.
Five years before the Boy Scouts testimony, Broome was already spending large sums to keep same-sex couples from marrying in California. The Secretary of State filings the user supplied show $36,000 to the two committees that ran the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign. A separate compilation of FEC and state disclosure records lists additional ProtectMarriage.com and Voteyesmarriage.com contributions from Broome in Redlands during the same 2007-2008 window, pushing the documented total past $60,000.
$60,000+ to pass Proposition 8
The two committees — Voteyesmarriage.com and ProtectMarriage.com — were the principal campaign vehicles for Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California until courts struck it down. A separate tracker of major Yes on 8 donors, Rights Equal Rights (formerly Californians Against Hate), also lists Broome as a major donor and identifies him as 'Head of Radiology, Abdominal Imaging, Loma Linda University.'
Every disclosed contribution
- $5,000Nov. 19, 2007Voteyesmarriage.com — California Marriage AmendmentPhysician @ Loma Linda University Radiology Medical Group
- $2,000Dec. 5, 2007Voteyesmarriage.com — California Marriage AmendmentPhysician @ Loma Linda University Radiology Medical Group
- $1,000Dec. 6, 2007Voteyesmarriage.com — California Marriage AmendmentPhysician @ Loma Linda University Radiology Medical Group
- $20,000Jan. 1, 2008ProtectMarriage.com — A Project of California RenewalPhysician @ Loma Linda Radiology Medical Group
- $2,000Jan. 1, 2008ProtectMarriage.com — A Project of California RenewalPhysician @ Beaver Medical Group
- $5,000Jan. 1, 2008Voteyesmarriage.com — California Marriage AmendmentPhysician @ Loma Linda University Radiology Medical Group
- $5,000Jan. 1, 2008ProtectMarriage.com — A Project of California RenewalRadiologist @ Loma Linda University Medical Center
- $100Jan. 24, 2008ProtectMarriage.comPhysician @ Beaver Medical Group
- $500Jan. 31, 2008ProtectMarriage.comPhysician @ Beaver Medical Group
- $2,000Mar. 17, 2008ProtectMarriage.comPhysician @ Beaver Medical Group
- $5,000Feb. 11, 2008ProtectMarriage.comPhysician @ Beaver Medical Group
- $20,000May 19, 2008ProtectMarriage.comPhysician @ Beaver Medical Group
- $2,000Aug. 12, 2008ProtectMarriage.comPhysician @ Beaver Medical Group
The Proposition 8 donations are not a one-off: they are the start of an eighteen-year pattern of using money and public testimony to restrict LGBTQ rights — from the 2008 marriage ban, to the 2013 Boy Scouts testimony, to the 2020s forced-outing policies and book removals he campaigns on today.
Then, under oath in Sacramento: the Boy Scouts
The arguments Broome makes at the RUSD podium today are not new. In April 2013 he drove to Sacramento to testify before a state Senate committee — as 'Redlands physician Dale Broome' — in defense of the Boy Scouts of America's ban on openly gay members and leaders. The Legislature was weighing whether to strip the Scouts' state tax exemption over the policy. The Los Angeles Times recorded what he told the lawmakers.
My main concern is a child safety issue... who have major concerns about sending their sons on Boy Scout camping trips with gay leaders or gay members.
Dale Broome, testifying against SB 323, Senate Governance and Finance Committee — Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2013
Framing openly gay Scouts and Scout leaders as a child-safety threat is the same move as the 2020s forced-outing and 'girls sports' arguments: cast LGBTQ people as a danger to children, then build policy around it. He was making that case in the state Capitol thirteen years before he asked Redlands for a school board seat.
What the Boy Scouts testimony really means
- In 2013, California lawmakers considered removing the Boy Scouts' state tax break because the organization barred openly gay members and leaders. Broome traveled to Sacramento to argue against that bill.
- Under oath, he did not talk about taxes or nonprofit policy. He told legislators that gay Scouts and Scout leaders were a 'child safety issue' and that parents worried about sending their sons on camping trips with them.
- That is the same framing he uses today: LGBTQ people are cast as a threat to children, and policy is built around excluding them. The 2008 Prop 8 money banned same-sex marriage. The 2013 testimony defended excluding gay men from Scouting. The 2020s board-room speeches target books, flags, and student privacy for LGBTQ kids.
Timeline: from Prop 8 to the school board
Click any year to see the contribution, testimony, or action — and the source behind it.
2007–2008
$60,000+Proposition 8
Broome gives at least $60,000 to Voteyesmarriage.com and ProtectMarriage.com, the two principal committees working to pass Proposition 8 and ban same-sex marriage in California. The donations span more than a year and are filed under his name as a Loma Linda/Redlands physician.
2013
Boy Scouts testimony
Broome testifies in Sacramento against a bill that would have stripped the Boy Scouts of America of its state tax exemption because of its ban on gay members and leaders. He frames openly gay Scouts and leaders as a 'child safety issue.'
2016
Wall Street Journal / interfaith tension
On the first anniversary of the San Bernardino terror attack, The Wall Street Journal reports on local faith leaders' effort to protect Muslim neighbors from backlash. Broome appears in the article as a resident pressing back against that interfaith work; opponents later characterize his conduct as harassment.
2022–2023
RUSD board appearances and book challenges
Broome begins appearing regularly at the RUSD podium. By May 2023, district minutes record a speaker stating that 'Dr. Broome has submitted four complaints' about library books. He also challenges a board resolution containing DEI and social-justice language.
2023
Recruits Lawrence Hebron
On July 14, 2023, Broome calls Lawrence Hebron — the author of Islam Exposed: What You Need to Know About the World's Most Dangerous Religion — and urges him to run for the RUSD board to help 'turn the board.'
2024
$400,000 + $5,000Voucher signatures and Sonja Shaw donation
Broome becomes a major donor to the Educational Freedom Act of 2022 school-voucher campaign and personally collects 2,113 signatures — far above the 50-signature goal assigned to him. He also gives $5,000 to Sonja Shaw's campaign for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
2025–2026
$10,000Current campaign and Area 2 spending
Broome files to run for Redlands USD Trustee Area 1. His own FPPC disclosures show $80,000 in personal loans to his committee, and he gives $10,000 to Maria Montes's Area 2 campaign — the candidate whose book challenge removed Gender Queer from every district library.
04 — His endorser
Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley, and the lawsuits.
Sonja Shaw appears on Broome's own endorsement list — and he has put money behind her. She is the president of the Chino Valley Unified school board and a candidate for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and she is the most litigated school board member in the state. What her district did is the clearest available preview of what the policies Broome campaigns on look like once a board majority actually passes them.
He gave $5,000 to her statewide campaign
CalMatters' 2026 voter guide lists Dale Broome as a $5,000 contributor to Sonja Shaw's campaign for California Superintendent of Public Instruction. The donation ties Broome not only to Shaw's local Chino Valley record but to her bid to oversee every public school in the state.
The pattern started with $60,000+ to Proposition 8
Before he funded Shaw, Broome spent more than $60,000 to pass Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California. Secretary of State filings and FEC/state disclosure compilations show more than a dozen contributions from late 2007 through mid-2008 to Voteyesmarriage.com and ProtectMarriage.com, the two committees behind the ban.
The forced-outing policy — and the state lawsuit
In July 2023 Chino Valley Unified passed a mandatory parental-notification policy requiring staff to tell parents if a student asked to be identified as a gender other than the one on their records. On August 28, 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the district over it.
Chino Valley lost
On September 9, 2024 the San Bernardino County Superior Court issued its final ruling against the policy in People ex rel. Bonta v. Chino Valley Unified School District (Case No. CIVSB2317301), permanently enjoining the forced-outing requirement. The district's taxpayers paid for the litigation.
Then Chino Valley sued the state
Having lost, the district went on offense: Chino Valley Unified v. Newsom, filed in federal court in 2025, asks a judge to strike down AB 1955, the state law barring districts from mandating that schools out students to their parents. The suit is carried by the Liberty Justice Center. AB 1955 is the same law Broome has gone to the Redlands podium to denounce.
The conduct that came with it
At the July 2023 meeting, Shaw had State Superintendent Tony Thurmond removed by security after he spoke against the policy, telling him "you're not going to blackmail us" and "you'll not bully us here in Chino." Coverage of her tenure in the Los Angeles Times and EdSource documents the pattern; in August 2026 her district drew a new state complaint over book bans and the outing policy while she runs for the office that oversees every school in California.
Broome lists her endorsement as an asset. It is also a forecast: the Chino Valley agenda produced a lost lawsuit, a permanent injunction, a federal countersuit, and legal bills paid out of a school district's budget. Redlands Unified would be voting on whether to run the same experiment.
05 — Library removals
The books, and what happened to them.
Broome dedicates a page of his campaign site to library books he and his allies challenged, headed "RUSD LIBRARY BOOKS WHICH WERE CHALLENGED FOR SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT — YOU BE THE JUDGE WHETHER THESE ARE APPROPRIATE FOR MINORS TO READ." The outcomes below are the ones his own page reports.
Two books removed outright
His page states that It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris and Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe "were immediately removed from the school libraries."
Eight more challenged
Eight additional books were challenged over "sexually-explicit text." Four found in middle-school libraries were "elevated from the middle school to the high school level."
Toni Morrison and Sapphire
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and PUSH by Sapphire were challenged a second time. By board decision PUSH was removed from the high schools and The Bluest Eye was restricted to 18-year-olds with parental consent.
Four complaints, on the record
District minutes from May 9, 2023 log a speaker stating "that Dr. Broome has submitted four complaints and nothing has been done" about books in RUSD libraries.
06 — Public records
87 pages of his own emails to the district.
A public-records request to Redlands Unified produced 87 pages of Dale Broome's own emails to the superintendent's office and the board, spanning November 2022 to February 2024. They are the private version of everything on this page — and they line up with it exactly. The book challenges, the flag policy, the Chino Valley-style outing resolution, and the campaign slate were all coordinated from the same inbox, much of it copied to awakenredlands@gmail.com.
Ties to 05 — The book removals
He personally drove the book removals — nine titles at once
On December 16, 2023 Broome wrote to the assistant superintendent listing the nine books he and two allies had pushed into district review: Beyond Magenta, Looking for Alaska, Lucky, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Push, Sold, The Bluest Eye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Tricks. He tallied the wins himself — Perks pulled from three middle schools, Looking for Alaska from four — then added: "This is good progress, but we still feel that these books are inappropriate even for high schoolers." Section 05 shows the outcomes; these emails show the hand behind them.
Ties to 05 — The book removals
What he actually wrote about teenagers and books
After the district's review committee ruled against him on The Bluest Eye, Sold, and Lucky, Broome appealed to the board on February 14, 2024 with this argument, in writing, to school administrators:
If I were to have 10 teenage boys read the sexually graphic scenes in these books, I can guarantee that at least 8-10 of those students would have an erection. It does not matter if post-menopausal women are sexually aroused by the books.
Dale Broome MD, email to Asst. Supt. Kenneth Wagner and the RUSD board, February 14, 2024
Ties to 10 — Awaken Redlands
He is Awaken Redlands, not just endorsed by it
Broome signs emails "Dale Broome MD / Awaken Redlands," copies awakenredlands@gmail.com on district correspondence, and writes on the group's behalf — asking the board on October 5, 2023 to agenda "the School Flag Policy proposed by Awaken Redlands," and on September 21, 2023 to pass the parental-notification resolution "concerned parents of Awaken Redlands requested." When Awaken Redlands organizer Candy Olson demanded a board hearing on Tricks and Beyond Magenta, Broome replied to the whole board: "And I concur as well."
Ties to 03 and 04 — Prop 8, the Scouts, and Sonja Shaw
He asked RUSD to copy the Chino Valley outing policy
On September 1, 2023 Broome urged the board to overturn the district's transgender-student privacy rule and "pass the Parental Notification resolution similar to the one passed in the Chino Valley USD" — the Sonja Shaw policy a court blocked and the state later outlawed. In the same email he called gender dysphoria "a mental health disorder" and told administrators that teens are "highly susceptible to peer pressure and grooming by pro-LGBTQ adults and counselors," claiming an unnamed teacher told him it was happening in RUSD's Gay-Straight Alliance clubs.
Ties to 02 and 11 — The money, and the meeting record
He told the district the books fight was a campaign
January 6, 2024, to two district administrators: "The final appeal will be at the ballot box in November, 2024. The failure of this administration and school board to protect our children from sexually graphic and harmful literature in the school libraries, will be discussed at length by our 3 candidates for School Board." A month earlier he had emailed the board contesting its rule against using public comment to campaign, writing that the board "does not have the authority to restrict freedom of speech in public comment about ballot measures or candidates." The library challenges and the slate were the same project.
Every quotation above is transcribed from the district's own released records. Names of private individuals other than Broome, district officials, and Awaken Redlands' public organizer are left as they appear in the release.
07 — The Wall Street Journal, and who he recruited
Redlands, one year after the attack.
On December 1, 2016 — the first anniversary of the San Bernardino terror attack — The Wall Street Journal published "San Bernardino Seeks to Bridge Divide a Year After Terror Attack" by Michael M. Phillips and Ian Lovett. The piece reported on the year-long effort by local faith leaders to keep the county from turning on its Muslim neighbors, and on the residents who pressed back against that effort. Dale Broome appears in it.
Why it belongs at the top of this page
Broome's campaign presents his record as beginning with library books and parental notification. The Journal's reporting places him in Redlands civic life a decade earlier, in the county's most raw moment, on the confrontational side of an interfaith conversation. Read the article and judge the conduct for yourself.
How his opponents describe it
Together For Redlands, the committee supporting Area 1 incumbent Patty Holohan, lists "Harassed Local Islamic Leaders (Wall Street Journal Article)" among its bullet points about Broome, and reproduces eight scanned pages of the article under the heading "Broome Harassed Local Islamic Leaders." That is their characterization of the reporting, quoted as theirs.
Read the primary source
The Journal is the primary source; everything else is commentary on it. The full article is linked below. Where the WSJ paywall blocks you, the Together For Redlands page posts scanned pages of the article in full.
Sources
The candidate he recruited
In October 2024 the Redlands Community News profiled Lawrence Hebron, then a candidate for the RUSD board in Area 3. The profile is where the recruiting is documented: "On July 14, 2023, Hebron received a call from Dr. Dale Broome, a diagnostic radiology specialist practicing in Redlands. Broome told him that three of the five positions on the Redlands school board would be up for election in 2024. Broom[e] felt they had an opportunity to 'turn the board.'" This is who Broome picked up the phone to recruit.
The retired educator with 23 years of public and private school experience, Lawrence Hebron, holds steadfast to the conviction regarding Muslims as prominently written in his book, "Islam Exposed: What You Need to Know About the World's Most Dangerous Religion."
Redlands Community News, Oct. 2024
According to Hebron, the central thesis of his book is this: Islam is "profoundly dangerous." Hebron says he did not collaborate, consult or peer-review the contents of his book with Islamic scholars or religious experts.
Redlands Community News, Oct. 2024
Hebron is endorsed and an active member of a local advocacy group, Awaken Redlands — the same group whose voter guide recommends Broome.
Redlands Community News, Oct. 2024
Broome recruited the author of a book calling Islam "the world's most dangerous religion" to help him take control of a school board in a district with Muslim families in it — sixteen months after the Journal placed him on the confrontational side of Redlands' post-attack interfaith effort. Neither fact is an accusation; both are on the record.
08 — The credential
"Truth in Textbooks" is not a textbook review board.
Broome's campaign biography lists him as a "trained volunteer California textbook reviewer with Truth in Textbooks." The phrase is built to sound like a credential — a reviewer, trained, doing review. It is not an academic credential, and Truth in Textbooks is not an academic body. It is a Texas-founded activist campaign that trains volunteers to file mass objections to instructional materials, and its founding cause was removing what it called pro-Islamic bias from schoolbooks.
Founded by a fired anti-Muslim organizer
The project (originally Truth in Texas Textbooks) was run by retired Lt. Col. Roy White, who led the San Antonio chapter of ACT for America — the largest grassroots anti-Muslim organization in the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that ACT fired White in February 2017 after he advertised a chapter meeting on how to "shut mosques down," and that he continued "his demonization of Muslims under a new banner." SPLC notes his textbook project "became part of the ACT umbrella of organizations in early 2016" and "targeted textbooks which ACT deemed too favorable to Islam in comparison to Christianity."
Its debut was a purge campaign, not a peer review
In the 2014 Texas State Board of Education adoption fight, the group demanded extensive edits to history, geography and even science textbooks to strip what it described as pro-Islamic, anti-Christian bias — arriving with hundreds of pages of late objections and a letter-writing campaign aimed at publishers. Contemporaneous reporting in the Texas Observer, the Texas Tribune and Gizmodo describes an organized ideological pressure campaign on publishers, not a scholarly review process.
"Trained volunteer" means trained by them
The training is the organization's own: volunteers with no requirement of a degree in history, religion or curriculum are handed a checklist of objections and sent to comment periods and board meetings to file them at volume. Reviewers recruited by academic and civil-liberties groups in the same Texas fight were credentialed scholars whose findings went through publishers and the board on the record. The two things are not equivalent, and listing one as if it were the other is the point of putting it in a campaign bio.
Why it matters in Redlands
The same method — flood the process with objections until material is pulled or relabeled — is exactly what Redlands Unified has seen in its libraries since 2022, and it is the method Broome brings to a seat that votes on curriculum adoption. He is asking for the authority to approve instructional materials for 20,000 students, and the training he cites for that job came from a campaign built to get Islam rewritten out of a schoolbook.
09 — Where the organizing happens
The pulpit, the signature drive, and James Riley.
Broome does not run this from a campaign office. The organizing address on the public record is a church, and the circle around it includes people whose politics go well past school policy. None of this is hidden — it is posted on the ministry's own site and on the voucher campaign's own volunteer platform.
He leads a ministry at The ARK church in Redlands
The ARK Redlands (Church of the Nazarene, 1307 E. Citrus Ave.) lists "Dr. Dale Broome" as the leader of its "Real Impact Ministry." The ministry page is not devotional. It is an advocacy page: "Homeschooling — Yes You Can!", "Your kids. Your Values, Your Choice," "Homeschooling is the ultimate School Choice," a link to the CA School Choice official site, and printable flyers to hand out.
His voucher volunteer team is registered as "ARK Church of Redlands"
On the California School Choice Foundation's volunteer platform, Broome's own profile is organized under the team "ARK Church of Redlands" and credits him with 2,113 signature recruits against a goal of 50. He booked the August 24, 2020 San Bernardino County school-choice volunteer meeting into ARK Church's Young Hall and listed his personal phone as the contact. The church building is the recruiting base for a statewide voucher measure.
What he posted there about sex education
On that same platform, under a page titled "SeXXX Education," Broome wrote that the material should stay up so parents "know what is being taught in public schools," and that "for parents who find this material offensive and immoral, then our School Choice initiative provides the ultimate Opt-Out to protect their child's mind and sexuality." The pitch is explicit: leave the public schools entirely, and take the money with you.
James Riley of Riley's Farm
Riley's Farm in Oak Glen — a long-running Redlands-area school field-trip destination — is owned by James "Jim" Riley, who traveled to Washington for January 6, 2021 and has written about it on the farm's own site ever since. Riley says he and his family were "on the western steps" and did not enter the building, and he describes himself and "millions of other 'J6ers'" as spiritually called to be there. He also acknowledges they were "standing on restricted ground." Separately, Claremont Unified pulled its field trips in 2018 over social-media posts the district called offensive and parents called misogynistic; Riley sued the district and the case has been to the Ninth Circuit twice.
- Riley's Farm — "What I can tell you, NOW, about January 6th" (his own account) →
- Riley's Farm — "What I saw at the 'Insurrection'" (Jan. 11, 2021) →
- San Bernardino American News — farm owner photographed at the Capitol rally →
- Redlands Daily Facts — Riley's First Amendment suit against Claremont Unified →
- Claremont Courier — Riley's Farm v. CUSD returns to the Ninth Circuit →
The association between Broome and Riley is one his critics raise, and it is a fair question to put to a candidate: a school board trustee votes on field trips, curriculum and who the district does business with. Broome has not, to our knowledge, publicly addressed it. If he does, this page will say so.
10 — The group backing him
Awaken Redlands recommends him.
Awaken Redlands publishes a Redlands voter guide, "Local Candidates with Traditional Values." That guide recommends Dr. Dale Broome for Redlands School Board Area 1 — on the same page it recommends Maria Montes, the recipient of his $10,000, for Area 2. The group also organizes turnout at RUSD board meetings for the same policy fights Broome speaks at. Every line below is quoted word-for-word from the organization's own website.
We are a non-partisan group of parents and community members focused on preserving traditional values in our city and schools.
WE STAND AGAINST — Equity of outcomes · Promotion of gender fluidity to minors · Racially charged education · Hypersexualized content in curriculum · Classroom push of political agendas
Come voice your concerns regarding bullying, sexual misconduct, age-inappropriate books in our school libraries or any other topics of concern.
11 — Board minutes
Every appearance in the archive.
Redlands Unified logs public comment by name. Search his 42 logged appearances below — the text is the district record's own summary of what he said, and each entry links straight to the page of the minutes it came from.
42 entries · newest first
RUSD Board of Education · August 11, 2026
Minutes, p. 22
Dale R. Broome - Urged passage of both policies citing four years of community requests; referenced Supreme Court case Mirabella v. Ponte and appellate decisions supporting parental notification as constitutional and affirming parental rights as potentially inalienable.
Open the minutes at this page →RUSD Board of Education · August 11, 2026
Minutes, p. 34
Dale R. Broome - Argued the school district must not create a wedge between parents and children, spoke against AB 1955 which he termed a "secrecy policy," strongly advocated for the parental notification policy, refuted the idea that notification is "forced outing," and framed AI as part of a larger "control grid," advocating for a return to traditional tools like books, paper, and pencils.
Open the minutes at this page →RUSD Board of Education · July 21, 2026
Minutes, p. 3
Dale R. Broome - Urged passage of both policies citing four years of community requests; referenced Supreme Court case Mirabella v. Ponte and appellate decisions supporting parental notification as constitutional and affirming parental rights as potentially inalienable.
Open the minutes at this page →RUSD Board of Education · July 21, 2026
Minutes, p. 15
Dale R. Broome - Argued the school district must not create a wedge between parents and children, spoke against AB 1955 which he termed a "secrecy policy," strongly advocated for the parental notification policy, refuted the idea that notification is "forced outing," and framed AI as part of a larger "control grid," advocating for a return to traditional tools like books, paper, and pencils.
Open the minutes at this page →RUSD Board of Education · July 21, 2026
Minutes, p. 35
Dale Broome - Thanked the board for passing the commemorative resolution for America's 250th anniversary. Noting that the average lifespan of a republic is 250 years, emphasized the critical importance of fostering patriotic values, a free-market understanding of the pursuit of happiness, and a focus on national unity over diversity. While acknowledging the nation's flawed history, he argued that the celebration should highlight the historical progress the country has made toward self-governance and individual rights.
Open the minutes at this page →RUSD Board of Education · June 9, 2026
Minutes, p. 17
Dale Broome - Thanked the board for passing the commemorative resolution for America's 250th anniversary. Noting that the average lifespan of a republic is 250 years, emphasized the critical importance of fostering patriotic values, a free-market understanding of the pursuit of happiness, and a focus on national unity over diversity. While acknowledging the nation's flawed history, he argued that the celebration should highlight the historical progress the country has made toward self-governance and individual rights.
Open the minutes at this page →RUSD Board of Education · June 9, 2026
Minutes, p. 25
Dale Broome - Urged the board to adopt the resolution celebrating the nation's 250th anniversary, stating that reaching this landmark is historically significant and that sustaining a republic requires transmitting patriotism and respect for constitutional foundations to future generations. Explained that the inclusion of faith and conviction in the resolution accurately reflects the nation's history and national motto, "In God We Trust." Stated that this language does not promote a state religion and requested that the board retain these principles to encourage a strong commitment to the country's foundational freedoms.
Open the minutes at this page →RUSD Board of Education · June 9, 2026
Minutes, p. 34
Dale Broome - stated that a requested parental notification policy was excluded from the meeting agenda and urged the board to publicly explain why the item is blocked. Explained that voters strongly support enhanced parental communication regarding student records, specifically concerning gender transitions, and requested that the district avoid any policies that withhold information from parents. Suggested that the district re-implement the Presidential Physical Fitness Test within its physical education programs, explaining that the program has a bipartisan history originating under the Kennedy administration to address youth fitness. Outlined the test components for core, cardiovascular, and upper body strength, and requested that testing be administered twice a year to give students multiple opportunities to achieve the national recognition.
Open the minutes at this page →