Peoria Unified board president proposes changes to 'No DEI' policy following book debate

The Peoria Unified School District governing board is reevaluating a hot-button policy it passed in November of 2025.

Policy 1-204, which is commonly referred to as the “No DEI” policy, prohibited the adoption of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Now, Board President Jeff Tobey wants to rename it the “Equal Opportunity and Merit-Based Decision-Making” policy and replace broad language with clearer standards.

In an interview with KJZZ, Tobey said the definition used in that original policy was borrowed from another school district and wasn’t clear or binding.

“There's really no way to enforce that type of ideological definition and that's kind of why we're here at this crossroads right now,” Tobey said.

Tobey has proposed a new version that he said allows the district to protect equal treatment while continuing to teach “honest, age-appropriate history.”

Community members recently raised concerns after several books were removed from the K-8 curriculum.

"Summer of the Mariposas," "A Raisin in the Sun," and "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" were pulled from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, respectively. Though district communications cited 1-204 in its reasoning, Tobey said that’s not why they made the change.

“There are three gates, if you will, of policy that all curriculum is looked at and 1-204 is just one of those three gates,” Tobey said. “I think that our communications department was just trying to be overly transparent as far as like, ‘hey, this is the process and how we review all curriculum.’”

Tobey said they felt the books contained topics that were not age appropriate.

“One of the other books that we also moved to a higher grade level was about Mount Everest,” Tobey said. “There are certain sensitive topics talking about like Rainbow Valley and things like that and just death that we thought was more appropriate for a higher age group.”

During the public comment portion of a governing board meeting on Sept. 10, teacher and parent Catherine Rabinovich said she read those three books and still did not agree with the decision.

“I am not convinced that the removal [of the books] is based solely on age appropriate concerns,” Rabinovich said. “Also without a replacement unit for each grade level affected you are putting sixth, seventh and eighth grade teachers and students at a large educational disadvantage.”

The West Valley NAACP filed a complaint about the curriculum changes. Tobey said district leadership has since met with the group.

“From my understanding, the local group of the NAACP had a really good meeting with the cabinet,” Tobey said. “I think that we're just going to kind of pause and hold for right now to see the outcome of not only this policy, but the implementation of those books in the higher grade levels and then what books we are substituting.”

Tobey said the vagueness of the existing policy has led to a lot of apprehension and questions from staff. He hopes to make expectations clearer with the new one.

“It is actually going to focus on what is acceptable behavior as far as including students or excluding students and what does an equal playing field look like,” Tobey said. “We rooted that in not only just state statute, but also Title VI and Title IX of the federal statutes.”

The new policy will undergo more review before a vote.