{"id":242659,"date":"2026-03-29T23:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/242659\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T23:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:33:11","slug":"sonja-shaw-is-fighting-for-californias-parents-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/242659\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonja Shaw is fighting for California\u2019s parents \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sonja Shaw was a mom of two schoolgirls thrown into politics in 2020 by the COVID school lockdowns. In 2022, she was elected president of Chino Valley Unified\u2019s Board of Education<\/a>, a post she still holds. Now she\u2019s running for state superintendent of public instruction.<\/p>\n

Although the post officially is nonpartisan, she is a Republican. In the top-two June 2 primary, she almost certainly will be one of the finalists.<\/p>\n

The other slot will go to one of eight other candidates. Labor endorsements are divided<\/a> among four Democrats: Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi is backed by the California Federation of Teachers; former state Sen. Josh Newman, by the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California; former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, by the SEIU; and Richard Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education, by the California Teachers Association.<\/p>\n

Whoever grabs the second slot will unify all the unions against Shaw. \u201cI was never, ever involved politically until I realized they were coming after our kids, and I realized I had a moral obligation to get involved,\u201d Shaw told me in an interview as she was \u201crunning\u201d to her car after meeting with parents in Chula Vista.<\/p>\n

With her leadership, in 2023 Chino Valley adopted<\/a> Board Policy 5020.1. Under it, schools would be required to notify parents if a student asked to use a different name or pronoun, to access facilities or programs that didn\u2019t match their sex on the birth certificate or to change official records. California Attorney General Rob Bonta called it \u201cforced outing\u201d and sued.<\/p>\n

The district was represented by the conservative Liberty Justice Center. In a court case, the school agreed to drop the parts about using pronouns or facilities, but kept the part about notification for official record changes. The final ruling in San Bernardino County Superior Court came on Sept. 11, 2024, and was not appealed by Bonta.<\/p>\n

Liberty Justice proclaimed<\/a>, \u201cVictory for parents\u2019 rights!\u201d Bonta called<\/a> it \u201ca win for all students in Chino Valley and across the State.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Shaw wins, I mentioned she might serve with Bonta if he\u2019s re-elected. \u201cOh, we\u2019re gonna have fun,\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, I don\u2019t back down, he doesn\u2019t back down. Guess what?\u201d<\/p>\n

Although lawsuits make headlines, parents are mostly concerned about academics. I quipped to her, no matter who wins, they couldn\u2019t possibly do worse than outgoing Superintendent Tony Thurmond, now running a quixotic campaign for governor. He failed to protest Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s draconian COVID lockdowns.<\/p>\n

I brought up Newsom\u2019s Jan. 10 budget proposal<\/a> for fiscal year 2026-27, which plans $27,418 in average pupil spending, an incredible amount and a 60.8% increase in his tenure. Yet California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress scores statewide released<\/a> last October showed just 48.8% of students across all grades \u201cproficient\u201d in English Language Arts and 37.3% in math.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call it failure and betrayal,\u201d Shaw said. She added a UC San Diego Senate-Administration Workgroup on Admissions Final Report last November found 11.8% of incoming students needed remedial math.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook to Mississippi,\u201d she said, and its success the past decade in boosting student test scores.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a topic I\u2019ve written about. The Magnolia State has risen<\/a> from near the bottom of rankings of states for the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests to ninth in reading and 16th in math in 2024. Even more impressive, it scored first in reading and third in math for Hispanic students, and third for African American students in reading and math.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shaw said she would bring the Mississippi \u201cvision\u201d of stressing basic reading and math to California.<\/p>\n

She also strongly favors charter schools, which \u201csaved my child when I didn\u2019t trust my local district,\u201d before she became superintendent. And charters provide \u201chealthy competition\u201d for traditional public schools.<\/p>\n

Like other Republicans running for statewide office in this heavily Democratic state, Shaw faces a long race to the head of the class. But even more than in other races, and in an area directly affecting people\u2019s precious children, the choice is clear: between one of the union hacks and a true fighter for parental rights.<\/p>\n

John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sonja Shaw was a mom of two schoolgirls thrown into politics in 2020 by the COVID school lockdowns.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,975,2082],"class_list":{"0":"post-242659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-opinion","12":"tag-opinion-columnists"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}