Leftist animus toward America reared up anew in California, where a stop on a patriotic school tour found some parents choosing absence over attendance.
(Video Credit: CBS LA)
In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, corporate media-bolstered activists pushed the notion that President Donald Trump would implement the demonized Project 2025 despite his stated distance from the Heritage Foundation initiative. Friday, similar unwarranted objections to American history inspired some parents to make pariahs out of their kids at a Chino Hills school over the Department of Education’s History Rocks! Trail to Independence Tour.
“I’m concerned about the views of Turning Point USA and the Heritage Foundation, which produced Project 2025,” Debra Esquivel, a grandparent of a Canyon Hills Junior High School student, told ABC 7. Of those organizations, parent Kristi Hirst alleged to CBS LA, “The things they teach and the ideas that they like to bring into communities and into students are concerning to me.”
Esquivel also spoke with CBS LA and posited, “What type of history are you actually going to be displaying?”
A school assembly celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States at Canyon Hills Junior High drew both participation and protest this week, as some parents raised concerns about its political affiliations and messaging.
Read more: https://t.co/VPIIDB66OE pic.twitter.com/5hBFZmiTDD— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) May 10, 2026
The answer to that question included student-led trivia and presentations on history that are already part of the students’ curriculum, as Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education President Sonja Shaw told the outlet via email, “They will be learning about the founding documents and also about the American Revolution. This is nothing new. It’s in our curriculum. They’ll have a game show type of thing going on, asking questions, and it’s really just a celebration of our country’s 250th birthday.”
As was reported earlier this year, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has led the president’s initiative on inspiring a love of American history with the launch of the tour set to visit all 50 states as part of the country’s sesquicentennial celebration.
Trump admin to restore love of country in schools ahead of 250th anniversary https://t.co/VGsAbIUcXP via @BIZPACReview
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) January 12, 2026
An included speaker on the tour, Senior Advisor for Civic Education Katie Gorka, said in a statement, “Canyon Hills sits in a part of California where the ambitions of the American story are still easy to spot. It is a place shaped by growth, by movement, and by people trying to build stable communities in the middle of constant change.”
“History Rocks! gives students a chance to see themselves in that story and to understand that America has always been shaped not just by famous names, but by communities like theirs,” she went on.
Likewise, students who spoke with CBS LA expressed that the assembly was not political, and one said from the stage during one of the two 45-minute assemblies, “What makes America special is that for generations, families all over the world have come here, searching for freedom, opportunity, and the chance to build a better life.”
“I think they politicized something that’s not political,” Gorka told CBS LA, as America 250 Civics Education Coalition has partnerships with the America First Policy Institute, Turning Point USA, Hillsdale College, and other national and state organizations.
Where it concerned the decision by some parents to pull their students out of school for the day, Shaw remarked, “I feel bad their kids missed school, that’s a whole day of instruction time, it was an interaction, obviously every lie that was put out before the event took place did some damage.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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