Community Rallies Behind Theater Teacher, Urges CNUSD To Renew Contract

The final high school production of the year is often bittersweet as seniors prepare to say goodbye, but this year’s final show at Eleanor Roosevelt High School (ERHS) in Eastvale was even more difficult as theater teacher David Ireland will also be leaving at the end of the school year.

“It’s just been emotional, for me at least, I feel like just knowing that it’s coming to an end so fast, and that there’s a chance he might not be here next year is just kind of heartbreaking,” Emma Rosales, a freshman at ERHS, said. “I’ve only known him for a year, but I just feel like he’s just made such an impact on my life.”

Theater was just one of the activities Steven Rosales, Emma’s father, encouraged her and her younger sister to participate in after a family tragedy near the start of the school year.

“This community of friends, not knowing what’s going on in our personal life, has been helpful, encouraging and loving towards our daughters,” Steven Rosales said. “And it’s not just a theater teacher, but it’s a teacher who has invited the community to be part of that community.”

But Ireland’s departure was not by choice. The district has exercised its right to non-reelect Ireland, a probationary employee, in a decision that has inspired an outpouring of support from the community and another push from the union to provide better support for all teachers who are new to the district.

“I know some people might think that it’s kind of silly to care so much about a job, but to David and to me, it’s so much more than a job,” Ireland’s wife, Emily, said. “This is our life…so losing it is so much more than just losing a job, it’s losing a community.”

David declined to speak on the record for this story, citing concerns that it could negatively impact any possibility of retaining his job at the district.

For those who spoke with The Record, that Ireland will not be returning in the fall is just another blow to a program that has struggled since former theater teacher Merica Frost left in 2021.

“Just a lot of, I feel like, instability in a short amount of time,” Doug Bartlett, whose child is in the theater program, said.

Picking up the pieces

Ireland was brought into the district in the summer of 2023, after the abrupt departure of former theater teacher Chad Costello that spring — less than two years after his 2021 hiring.

For Ireland, who graduated from the Corona-Norco Unified School District (CNUSD) and whose wife works in the district, getting to teach at ERHS was a dream come true.

“We were just over the moon thrilled,” Emily said. “We were so excited. We announced it on Instagram, and everyone who we know in this area was just absolutely thrilled.”

When Ireland started the job that summer, he immediately dove in headfirst, Emily said, looking at different shows they could do and talking with boosters, school administration and others to see what needed to be done, not knowing the extent of what had happened prior to his arrival.

“We knew that he was going to be in for a challenge,” Emily said. “And then once we kind of got into it…we started getting to know the kids and the families and just started to see the extent of just how much damage there was to them emotionally and socially. It was bad.”

In November of that year, Costello was arrested on suspicion of inappropriate contact with students. He was later charged, and pleaded not guilty, to seven felony charges including three counts of lewd acts to a child aged 14 or 15, attempted sexual penetration with bodily injury on a minor over the age of 14, attempted sexual penetration with a foreign object on a minor under the age of 18, sexual penetration with bodily injury on a minor over the age of 14 and assault with intent to commit mayhem, according to court filings. He is due back in court June 27.

A number of students involved in the program under Costello ended up leaving, including Jen Friedhof’s child.

“With my own kid, it got to the point where my kid was suicidal because of the things that this teacher had said to him,” Friedhof, who serves as the technical director, said. “I ended up pulling him out of the program, and I was not involved in the program the second year that that teacher was there, but I heard that it just got worse.”

Friedhof, whose child graduated last year, said the Irelands had reached out to her during David’s first year after learning that she had helped the program in the past with the set and some graphic design work. At first, she was hesitant, not wanting a repeat of what had happened before.

“The more time I spent with them, and I saw how gracious and forgiving and uplifting he was to the students, it really started to change my heart towards him,” she said. “And you know, fast forward now a year and a half, almost two years later, and they are two of my closest friends.”

Throughout Ireland’s tenure, Friedhof said she has seen the difference firsthand, both in her own child, who rejoined the program as a senior, and throughout the group.

“There are kids that I honestly was worried about during the last teacher’s time there,” she said. “And now they’re leaders in the drama club program, and so David helped to not only rebuild a broken program, but also restore these broken students.”

But Ireland wasn’t just focused on building up the students in the theater program, Emily said.

“He built up relationships with the choir teacher who he had sort of known from years and years and years ago in theater, but he was like, ‘I want us to have a relationship. I want our kids to support each other,’” Emily said. “And so he’s been able to build a bridge between those two programs.”

She said he had also been very flexible with the scheduling of the theater department’s productions in order to accommodate other programs and events in the high school’s theater, and even with the changes in school administration.

“The principal when [David] first got hired was very supportive, and he’s always loved the arts, and he’s always supported the theater department, and he was so ecstatic that David was joining,” Emily said. “And he gave [David] glowing reviews on his observations, and he just very clearly supported this program.”

But in February 2024, Principal Greg Anderson was arrested on suspicion of violating mandatory reporting laws related to the allegations against Costello. Emily said a temporary principal was placed at the school for the remainder of the year before current principal Jennifer Montgomery was hired for this year.

​​”She wrote something super nice about the theater program in the fall for our fall show just praising the theater program and everything,” Emily said. “We’re like, ‘Wow, that’s so sweet. We don’t even know her,’ and it seemed fine, but then, like after that, she just seemed kind of distant, and then all of a sudden, David just finds out that he’s being non-reelected, and he’s like, this doesn’t make any sense.”

A shock to the system

The first year Ireland was at the school, Emily said his performance reviews were all very positive with all of the key observations being listed as meets or exceeds expectations. But this year, it all seemed to change.

“He had one evaluation at the beginning of the school year from his assistant principal, and she also observed him last year, but she was not as harsh last year, but then all of a sudden, this year, the same person, and she just seems to be much more critical,” Emily said. “She had said he needs to work on all these different things, and David took that seriously.”

Emily said he immediately started looking into ways to improve his teaching and the two worked together to figure out how he could better support his special education students and their needs. During a second formal observation, Emily said David received a really positive review for a lesson he was teaching about lighting.

But when it came time for a summative evaluation, Emily said it focused on the first observation from the year as well as informal observations, while also highlighting the critiques from the second observation.

“However, she did mention any time she made a critique of something that he did wrong or needs to work on, she put underneath that David continues to show growth in this area,” Emily said. “So in every single thing she was criticizing, she was also recognizing that he is making progress towards whatever it is that they want to see.”

According to the district, each temporary and probationary employee receives three observations per year that are reviewed, signed and dated by the supervisor and employee during a post-observation conference. Additionally, each employee must sign a preliminary individual evaluation assessment guideline as well as professional goals at the start of the year and must complete a self-evaluation prior to the summative evaluation.

“These processes and forms have been mutually agreed upon with our teachers’ association as it is a subject of mandatory bargaining,” the district said in an email to The Record. “These processes are standard across all sites and were last changed in 2014.”

David, who was initially hired on a temporary contract, was moved over to a probationary contract in the first few months at ERHS. This year was the second year of his probationary contract, and if it were to be renewed, he would become a tenured teacher with the district. But after his summative evaluation, Emily said they started to get concerned.

“On Valentine’s Day at 4:30 p.m., David had just gotten home and he got a phone call from CNUSD [Human Resources], and they just asked for a meeting the next week, and they said ‘to discuss your employment,’” Emily said. “So they scheduled it and everything, and once they hung up, we both just burst into tears, because we knew what it was.”

When David went to the meeting, Emily said he was told that he was being non-reelected, gave him his paperwork and left him to discuss what had just happened with a union representative. That union representative was Corona-Norco Teachers Association President Meg E’amato.

“It’s one of the worst days of the job as president,” E’amato said in an interview with The Record.

According to E’amato, teachers who are being non-reelected will receive a call from HR to set up a meeting to discuss their employment, and then at that meeting are told that the district will not be welcoming them back for the following school year “based on conversations [HR has] had with [their] principal and a multitude of reasons.”

“The member usually is shocked and bewildered and upset,” E’amato said, noting that HR does not answer any questions as to the specifics of why the decision was made.

And, outside of three very specific circumstances, E’amato said there is no recourse for the probationary teachers whose contracts are not renewed.

“The very first year that I sat in on them, I was like, really flabbergasted, because it seemed like a very jarring thing. It seemed like every single one of the people I sat with had no idea this was coming,” E’amato said. “And that just fundamentally goes against what we believe should be happening like in the first few years.”

E’amato said that while the district provides mentorship and training for new teachers who are also new to the profession, it doesn’t offer the same services to experienced teachers who are new to the district. And, she said, most of the teachers getting non-reelected are those who come in from other districts.

“They definitely are not getting the right support, and I would argue, not getting honest and open feedback in their evaluation processes,” E’amato said.

For the theater community, finding out that Ireland would not be coming back in the fall came as a total shock.

Darius and Monica Jamison said they found out at a district theater competition after ERHS won first place.

“Everybody was celebrating, and at the end, he asked the boosters that were in attendance to speak with us privately,” Darius said. “So we went off to the side, and he let us know, and it was really kind of surreal, like it didn’t make sense, especially after seeing him be successful with the kids in that competition.”

Monica serves as the treasurer of the boosters, and Darius is a board member. Their two children are also part of the ERHS theater program.

“It was not expected at all,” Monica said. “Very surprising and devastating.”

The community fights back

Less than a month after the Irelands got the news, the Corona-Norco Unified School District Board of Education was set to make the final decision on contract non-renewals for probationary employees.

Eight members of the community, including four students, urged the board ahead of the March 4 closed session to allow David to continue teaching at ERHS, according to the meeting minutes. Rosales was one of the parents who spoke at the meeting.

“It was important to me,” Rosales said. “I’m not going to say I’m friends with David Ireland or I know him well, but I’ve seen the impact that he’s had.”

Corona-Norco Teachers Association President Meg E’amato also addressed the board, calling on individual members of the board to stand with the educators and vote against the non-renewals.

“I try very hard to work with the administration and the cabinet and the people to make those changes that we see need to be made,” E’amato said of her decision to take her concerns to the board. “But it gets to a point that I’m not seeing the change, or our members are not seeing the change, or the executive board is not seeing the change, and you have to take it the next step.”

Also at the meeting was Jess Alvarez, who has known the Irelands for several years through her work with youth at a local church.

“He didn’t even want the students involved,” Alvarez said. “I was on the meeting with the parents before we went to the district meeting, and we were like fighting David being like, ‘Let us tell our students that you’re not going to be coming back so that they can fight too.’

“His concern has always been for the students,” she continued. “And it just feels like [the school doesn’t] care about the students as much as he does, and yet he’s the one who’s having to leave.”

The ERHS Mustang Theatre Booster club also started a Change.org petition that has since garnered more than 1,200 signatures. The petition asks that the school’s principal and the CNUSD board of education reconsider their decision to not reelect David and take into account the concerns of the community.

“The impact Mr. Ireland has made cannot be quantified,” the petition stated. “His dedication and commitment has positively influenced the lives of hundreds of dear students.”

Darius said the boosters also coordinated an email campaign targeting board members, the principal, the superintendent and anyone else who was willing to listen to their concerns. The group also took to social media to spread the word.

“We went all out, at least what we thought we could do, everything within our power,” Darius said. “We encouraged our kids, if they felt compelled to do so, to post on social media.”

Through that, the boosters and other parents were able to get a meeting with school and district officials, but those who went said it felt like their concerns were not being heard.

“We get the perception that they wanted us to stop,” Darius said. “I wouldn’t say they threatened us, but they did kind of. 

“It felt like if we didn’t stop doing what we were doing — the social media piece — that there was a possibility that the boosters would not exist the next year,” Darius continued. “They didn’t say that, but it felt like we could lose something if we continued to do what we thought was right.”

Emily said the outpouring of community support is what kept her going most days.

“It’s a really weird feeling, because you see all these people who care and who see that this is wrong, and who are there to support and to fight back and to speak up and that’s incredible,” Emily said. “But there’s also this, I guess, sadness that it doesn’t seem to matter to the district that all of these people are showing that this is unfair, that this is not in the best interest of students, that this will negatively impact the kids and the program dramatically.”

A better path forward

The spring musical closed Saturday night with its final performance of “All Shook Up,” a show about the awakening of an unnamed American town in the 1950s after a guitar player in a leather jacket rolls into town after a weekend in jail.

The musical ends with the entire town in a state of celebration with a trio of weddings and the musician who changed the town getting the girl of his dreams. But musicals aren’t real, and in the town of Eastvale, a theater program roiled by controversy will again be thrust into the unknown after David’s contract ends June 30.

“​​It’s probably been some of the hardest months of my life,” Emily said. “The amount of anxiety I have felt has been horrendous, I mean, to a level I never experienced before.”

Emily said both she and David have continued to reach out to the district in hopes of changing the district’s decision, but have received no response.

“We’ve given so much of our personal time and our energy and all of that to this district because we love these kids, and then for the district to just turn around and slap us in the face with, ‘Actually, we don’t want you,’ has been incredibly painful,” Emily said. “It’s a feeling of loss and betrayal that I just never really thought possible.”

For E’amato, who has seen how difficult this process is on teachers, students and their families, her hope is that the district and the board will not only provide more support for all teachers who are new to the district, but also increase transparency and communication in both the evaluation and non-reelection processes.

“As humans, we don’t like to have those difficult conversations with people, but when you’re not having those difficult conversations with people, it’s not going to provide them the opportunity to make the changes they need to make,” she said.

The district, in an emailed statement to The Record said that it could not comment on individual employee decisions, but reiterated its commitment to the continued success of the program. 

“Our priority is to provide students with high-quality educational and extracurricular experiences, and we are confident in the future of the program,” the statement said. “The district and school administration are working collaboratively to ensure a smooth transition and continued support for our students and their creative growth.”

And while many of the parents have accepted that Ireland will no longer be at the district this fall, the question of what comes next, in light of everything that has happened over the past few years, has many concerned.

“My biggest concern is that David created this safe space where kids are free to be themselves,” Friedhof said. “And now there’s just all these unknowns, and I don’t know that those kids are going to be safe, or if they’re even going to have a place to land when this new teacher comes in.”