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  "description": "“It’s all been political ideologies being shoved down everybody’s throats, and I think everybody’s tired of that. You need somebody who’s going to get in there and fight that and be like, ‘No, enough already.’”",
  "path": "/meet-the-state-superintendent-candidates-sonja-shaw-chino-valley-unified-board-president/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-26T17:34:40.000Z",
  "site": "https://ielaw.news",
  "tags": [
    "EM",
    "research from Stanford University",
    "night of the clash",
    "a legal battle",
    "the SAFETY Act",
    "according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll.",
    "an openly transgender track star from Jurupa Valley",
    "According to the Chino Valley Champion",
    "PPIC poll",
    "who has raised nearly $1.2 million"
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  "textContent": "At a raucous school board meeting in 2023, Chino Valley Unified board president Sonja Shaw accused California Superintendent Tony Thurmond of “perverting children” — a moment that quickly defined her confrontational style.\n\nNow, Shaw is running to replace him.\n\nShaw’s rise in California politics has been swift. Before the pandemic, she was a stay-at-home mom married to a construction manager who led early-morning personal training sessions and didn’t even know what a school board was.\n\n“I never wanted to do politics,” she said, during an interview with EdSource. “I only got involved because I realized I had a moral obligation.”\n\nShaw represents a wave of conservative, often religious, mothers who became active in school board politics during the pandemic, raising issues such as keeping transgender athletes out of girls sports.\n\n“She has fire in her belly, she has passion, she has energy, she has kids, she is willing to be out there,” said Mari Barke, a trustee on the Orange County Board of Education and a Shaw supporter.\n\nRepublicans have rallied around Shaw, who is positioning herself as an outsider in a field of Democrats. Californian voters have typically elected superintendents with advanced degrees, but Shaw did not attend college — being a strong mother was her only major aspiration.\n\nAs a child, she served as a maternal figure for her younger siblings while her own mother struggled with heroin addiction.\n\n“I would hide food stamps just to feed my siblings,” she said. “I would stay home from school to take care of my siblings.”\n\nShe and her siblings entered the foster care system before her dad regained custody.\n\n“I learned that a lot of systems don’t work,” she said.\n\nDuring the pandemic, Shaw enrolled her daughters in EM, a charter school in Rancho Cucamonga, where they could learn in person, but she kept hearing “horror stories” from parents in the district. Shaw helped organize a group of mothers to attend Chino Valley Unified school board meetings, then decided to run herself when she realized she lived in an area with an open seat.\n\nAs the pandemic subsided, Shaw turned to the issues that have most animated her political career: California laws and policies that she says threaten girls and limit the rights of parents. These policies, such as requiring public schools to have age-appropriate LGBT-related content, were passed by a Democratic majority to make schools more inclusive.\n\nAccording to Morgan Polikoff, professor at the USC Rossier School of Education, conservative mothers became the leading voice for a movement to reopen schools and protest school mask policies. Supporters launched what they called a “parents’ rights movement,” led by Moms for Liberty, challenging school policies related to sex, race or LGBT issues. The California chapter endorsed Shaw’s superintendent campaign.\n\nShaw says her approach removes “political ideologies being shoved down everybody’s throats” and allows schools to focus on academics. She points to research from Stanford University on Chino Valley Unified’s improved test scores as evidence that her strategy is working.\n\n“I’m not claiming to know how to teach,” she said. “I ask teachers what they need and work with them to figure it out.”\n\nShaw was a vocal critic of the current superintendent, and many, including the superintendent himself, expected her and the board to oust him. Instead, Shaw said she took her time to learn how the district works and bought into the superintendent’s vision.\n\n“I’m not the big bad wolf,” Shaw said.\n\nShaw’s approach has drawn both support and criticism. Members of the Chino Valley Defenders of Public Education have opposed the current board, arguing it is too focused on cultural wedge issues and fearmongering about trans athletes.\n\n“We’re supposed to be focused on education and not on things that are better handled privately by families,” said Lisa Greathouse, whose children attended district schools and who launched a failed bid for a board seat. “And they are making it the number one bogeyman issue to focus on here.”\n\nOn the night of the clash with Thurmond in 2023, Chino Valley Unified’s board passed a policy that required school staff to disclose a student’s gender identity to parents. That policy would kick off a legal battle between the state and Chino Valley Unified and other conservative school boards. In 2024, California passed the SAFETY Act, which prohibited school districts from requiring staff to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Fifty-nine percent of public school parents support California’s law, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll.\n\nWhen the mother of AB Hernandez, an openly transgender track star from Jurupa Valley, sent Chino Valley Unified a cease and desist notice claiming Shaw’s social media comments constituted cyberbullying, Shaw tore up the letter during a board meeting. “This cease and desist” — she paused to rip it — “that’s what I feel about that.”\n\nAccording to the Chino Valley Champion, Shaw had stated, “This boy is competing against girls in track and field … he should know better, but the adults in his life are especially to blame.”\n\nA 2025 PPIC poll found that 71% of public school parents support requiring transgender athletes to compete based on the gender they were assigned at birth.\n\nExperts say the issue is complex. Polikoff said of all the policies aimed at making schools inclusive for LGBT students, that one has the least public support. “It’s clearly why Republicans have seized on that.”\n\nShaw’s campaign has raised $261,089, which puts her behind three other superintendent candidates, including former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who has raised nearly $1.2 million.",
  "title": "Meet the State Superintendent candidates: Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley Unified board president",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-26T17:34:41.190Z"
}