School district cuts ties with group that secretly targeted kids for conversion to Christianity
The Vallejo City Unified School District severed its contract with Boomer Bennett after learning his anti-bullying events masked a secret religious agenda
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A public school district in Vallejo, California has cut ties with a third-party organization that was contracted to lead anti-bullying assemblies and workshops after they learned it was really a Christian ministry in disguise… and after the man in charge confessed to a local church this was all a ruse to target children for conversion.
The Vallejo City Unified School District said they had signed “grant-funded agreements totaling more than $600,000” with a group called JF University/Luv Our Youth. One document from a school board meeting from last August says that “JF University” means “Just Finished University” because it was created by people who were formerly incarcerated but pledged to spend their eventual freedom to help others “make better choices for themselves and their families.” Nothing wrong with that.
But part of that deal included paying JF University and its leader Eryck “Boomer” Bennett $3,200 for an anti-bullying assembly at Wardlaw Elementary School. That might have been uneventful except that, on Instagram, Bennett openly announced that he was going to proselytize when he was there:
Wherever we step foot in, remember, man, that is our territory. And today, this school, this assembly, these students, are about to receive the power of God, see the power of God, experience the power of God, through the obedience of his sons and daughters. God is good.
You might argue that he’s just speaking metaphorically. You can deliver a powerful secular message and still claim it’s God speaking through you.
But it didn’t help that he was far more explicit about his intentions during a pair of church services last June, informing the congregation at Calvary Chapel San Jose that he was working with this public school district but secretly trying to convert the students in it.
The plan, he explained, was simple. It’s one that many Christians like Bennett use to lure children to church. He would deliver a predominantly secular anti-bullying assembly during the day, urge kids to come to an after-school version of the same event (while bringing their friends and family!), and that’s where he would lean hard into the Christian message.
I teach… it’s called Champion Academy, and our slogan is “We turn students into champions.” Now on the front end, that sounds like, “Yeah!”… but the school district don’t know, we turn students into champions for Christ. That’s the end goal, is to turn every student into a champion for Christ.
How we do that?… We start a club on the school campus... and then that club translate to a OCA which we call “off-campus activity.” That off-campus activity is where we give them Christ and Christ crucified. That’s where discipleship is started. That’s where, like, I can really get into the nuts and bolts of what Jesus did into my life. And then we get them saved and then we send them back on school campuses to turn their campus for Christ and build more champions for the Kingdom of God…
He said later in the sermon that the school district didn’t have enough Jesus, which is why he needed to take a “cloak and dagger” approach to sneak it in there:
… There’s no Jesus being preached anywhere. As a matter of fact, you guys know Jesus is being ridiculed in some of our school systems.
So, it is on me, and those who choose to partner with me, to go on campuses. And sometimes we go like cloak and dagger, right? Sometimes you just can’t kick down… I like to kick down every door and say “Jesus is here!” And the Lord is like, “Not this school! Not this one!” Sometimes you got to go in cloak and dagger.
So… some of them are cloak and daggers, some of them are outright… but regardless, we pay attention to what the spirit of God is doing on every school campus, how he wants us to get in there to give them Jesus… and we do it.
During his earlier message that same day, he also trashed the school district for spending tens of thousands of dollars per student “but their reading comprehension skills are dismal [and their] relationship skills are dismal.” He added that the campuses were “reckless” with students and treating them “like pawns.”
The district didn’t know any of this was happening at the time.
They were also unaware that JF University didn’t actually stand for “Just Finished University.” That was a lie. It actually stands for “Jesus Followr University” (misspelling on purpose) and has always stood for that since it began in 2019. It was registered more recently as a religious ministry. The purpose of the group is not to steer students away from bullying at all. It’s to “advance biblical thought, family values, and a love for Jesus Christ.”
It wasn’t until last month, when someone brought this to the school district’s attention, that administrators took a closer look at the group they had signed up to work with and realized they had been duped by a lying Christian.
That’s why they’re now terminating the agreement with Bennett:
Yesterday, the District became aware of a video in which the organization’s president, Eryck Bennett, made disparaging remarks about the Vallejo community and shared intentions that are inconsistent with the scope and expectations of the District’s agreement, including misrepresenting his purpose while working in district schools.
Upon review, the District took immediate action to sever all ties with both the individual and the organization. They no longer have access to any VCUSD campuses, students, or staff.
“Our public schools are, and always will be, inclusive and welcoming spaces for students of all backgrounds, faiths, and beliefs,” said VCUSD Superintendent Rubén Aurelio. “We will not allow anyone to misuse access to our campuses or undermine the trust we place in our partners. We take our responsibility to uphold the separation of church and state and to protect our students very seriously.”
That is absolutely the right response. But it raises very important questions about what the hell the district’s vetting process looks like that they allowed Bennett to work with them in the first place. Everything he was doing to promote his religion was front and center if they bothered with a cursory Google search. It’s almost like they saw that Bennett passed a background check so they didn’t bother with an intentions check.
It’s why the district said they would also be rethinking their vetting processes:
In response to this incident, the District is conducting a comprehensive review of its vetting processes for third-party vendors and strengthening oversight of contractor activities on school campuses to ensure full compliance with District policies and state law.
According to the Vallejo Sun and reporter Zack Haber, who first broke this story, Bennett has been playing this game for a long time, and he’s very clearly a right-wing activist. No wonder dishonesty is one of the tools he uses.
Bennett has advocated at Pro-Life rallies and praised President Donald Trump in videos posted to his YouTube page. He has also recently worked as a director with Turning Point USA Faith, which is a right-wing organization founded by Charlie Kirk that, according to its website, “exists to unite the Church around primary doctrine and to eliminate wokeism from the American pulpit.”
It’s possible the district never looked at JF University’s website because Bennett has a personal one that contains no mention of his actual religious beliefs. If you wanted to sneak into a public school, that’s the website you would share with the district. On it, Bennett says he’s worked with a number of public school districts in the area:
Obviously, any district that has a contract with Bennett—or is considering one in the future—should consider ripping it up because he’s a professional liar who can’t be trusted to put the students front and center. He only sees them as mindless bodies with targets on their backs.
That’s the thing about his ministry: It doesn’t treat students as independent, intelligent people who just need to hear a powerful message. It treats them as Christians-in-waiting, as if their religious label is the only thing that matters. Anyone who sees kids as a religious label and nothing more has no business entering a public school.
But Bennett is only half the story. The district didn’t do its due diligence. Had they looked into him, they would have found plenty of evidence of his faith-based scheme. It’s not like they got outmaneuvered by a brilliant tactician. They just got lazy. And that laziness created the exact opening someone like Bennett counts on.
Whenever religious people tell school districts they just want to “help kids” or “build character,” administrators should never take it at face value. Not when there’s a documented playbook of Christians trying to infiltrate schools.
Public schools are supposed to be places where children from every background are safe from religious coercion. That only works if the adults in charge do their jobs as gatekeepers.
Bennett has praised Trump? Does he not know how the racist pig feels about non-whites?
Bennett is not only a liar, he's stupid.
If you have to disguise your true intentions, maybe you need to ask yourself whether you're doing the right thing.