Vallejo school district ousts contractor who said he’d make students ‘champions for Christ’

VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Unified School District abruptly terminated its contract with an organization run by Eryck “Boomer” Bennett on Friday after becoming aware of a video where he shared intentions to proselytize to students and made disparaging remarks about the Vallejo community.

District officials said in a press release that the contracts with Bennett’s organization JF University/Luv Our Youth totaled over $600,000 in state grant funds. Two contracts from August show the organization was tasked with implementing anti-bullying assemblies and workshops and supporting its after-school programs in ten schools this year, which is over half of the district’s campuses. District spokesperson Celina Baguiao said that Bennett’s organization started working for Vallejo schools in Autumn 2024. 

But two videos, both recorded in June, show Bennett preaching to a church in San Jose and explaining how he uses his access to schools in order to push Christian teachings onto students.

“Our slogan is that we turn students into champions,” Bennett said. “What the school district don’t know is we turn students into champions for Christ. That’s the end goal, is to turn every student into a champion for Christ.”

JF University stands for JesusFollowr University, but that unabbreviated name does not appear on contracts.

In the press release, district officials said Bennett “misrepresented his purpose while working at district schools.” Baguiao said one of the videos was shared with the governing board, then was forwarded to the superintendent’s office, which triggered an internal investigation.  She said that the district ’s currently reviewing its policy for processing third party vendors.

“This decision reflects our commitment to ensuring that all individuals and organizations serving our students model respect, professionalism, and alignment with our district's values and policies,” Baguiao said. “We will continue to review our partner vetting and monitoring processes to ensure the highest standards moving forward.”

Bennett did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Bennett is a former Los Angeles gang member who served roughly 12 years in prison  starting in 2004. He has spoken about how he found Christianity while incarcerated and was moved to spread the word. 

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.”

Bennett founded JesusFollowr University Inc. in 2019 as a nonprofit benefit corporation. The company dissolved in 2021, then he reformed the company in 2023 as a religious organization, according to records with the state of California. 

According to Bennett’s website, he’s worked with over a dozen public schools in addition to the ones in Vallejo, mostly in Sacramento and Placer counties. The website says his programs give “a framework for critical thinking, anti-bullying and academic leadership.” While his personal website doesn’t mention Christ or Christianity, his preaching in June shows him saying that, at every school he and his partners work at, they intend to turn children onto Christ, even if it means using deception.

“Sometimes we go in like cloak and dagger,” Bennett said. “Some of them are cloak and dagger, 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.”

Bennett said that he uses his access to school campuses to arrange off-campus activities, where he proselytizes to students, and encourages them to spread the word of Christ at school.

“We get them saved and then we send them back onto school campuses,” Bennett said, “to turn their campus for Christ and build more champions for the kingdom of God.”

In addition to his using schools as a means to proselytize, the district also objected to comments in his videos where Bennett insulted Vallejo’s school district and its community by saying its students’ reading comprehension and relationship skills were “dismal.” Bennett also said the district is “reckless” with students, and treats them “like pawns” in order to get school funding.

In addition to the two videos uploaded to YouTube, Bennett shared a video that appears to show him preparing to proselytize directly on a Vallejo school campus. A video which Bennett posted to Instagram in October showed him at Wardlaw Elementary School preparing to organize an assembly where he said he would “add some crazy kingdom value” to students and staff. 

“Wherever we lay foot in, remember that is our territory,” Bennett said. “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.”

A vendor quote request shows Bennett asked the district for $3,200 for this assembly.

Superintendent Rubén Aurelio said that Bennett’s choice to use school campuses to proselytize to students is why the district severed its ties with him.

“Our public schools are, and always will be, inclusive and welcoming spaces for students of all backgrounds, faiths, and beliefs,” Aurelio said in a statement. “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.”

Ian Smith, an attorney with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that the district allowing Bennett’s activities probably violated both federal and state law.

“When they contracted with him, they probably thought they were getting him to do an anti-bullying workshop,” Smith said. “But at any point when you’re using public schools or government funds to indoctrinate people, it’s a problem.”

Smith pointed to a clause within the First Amendment that bars Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion,” a section of the California Constitution which ensures “free exercise and enjoyment of religion without discrimination or preference,” and another section which says no “sectarian or denominational doctrine be taught, or instruction thereon be permitted, directly or indirectly, in any of the common schools of this State.”

Smith said that while many people see these laws as anti-religious, he doesn’t think they are. Rather, they “keep the government out of people’s private religious choices,” by preventing it from “putting its thumb on the scale of one religion, or part of one religion.”

Bennett appears to have misrepresented his organization to the school district. A school board agenda item for the Aug. 6 contract called Bennett’s organization “Just Finished University,” and said it was named as such to indicate its founders’, who were ex-convicts, commitment to making better choices. 

The organization was abbreviated as JF University on the Aug. 20 agenda, but no such organization called Just Finished University appears to be registered with the state of California. Both contracts approved in August were reviewed by Assistant Superintendent Heather Topacio and totaled roughly $215,000. 

Baguiao said that at the time the district made its agreements with Bennett, JF University was identified online as “Just Finished University,” and the establishment of JesusFollowr University  was a more recent development. 

“At that time, there was no information indicating that the organization would not meet our expectations for providing programming that maintains a clear separation between religious instruction and the school setting,” Baguiao said.

However, an archive of JesusFollowr University’s website shows it has gone by that name online since at least 2021.