Two years later, he ran for a seat on the board of San Diego Unified \u2014 the district from which his own children would graduate \u2014 with a similar focus on communities\u2019 values and needs.<\/p>\n
![\"Richard](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SUT-L-state-supe_005.jpg\")
Richard Barrera, the San Diego Unified school board president, speaks with Principal Mitch Booze at the East Village High School graduation ceremony at City College on Friday, June 5, 2026 in downtown San Diego. (Sandy Huffaker for The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
In a recent interview, he said that because the incumbent opposed bilingual education, he felt those values weren\u2019t being represented.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people that I worked with cared about the quality of their schools,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they were willing to work two or three jobs to make a sacrifice, they needed the schools to deliver for their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
It ultimately wasn\u2019t much of a race. The incumbent would fail to make the ballot<\/a>, leaving Barrera unopposed. \u201cI absolutely got lucky,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n News reports at the time framed that election as the one that established the San Diego Unified school board as a particularly union-friendly board<\/a> \u2014 a reputation it holds to this day.<\/p>\n \u2018Building more consensus\u2019<\/p>\n When Barrera first joined the board at the end of 2008, it was still reeling from the recession. He recalls that at his first full board meeting, the superintendent proposed $50 million in mid-year cuts \u2014 a challenge that would last his entire first term.<\/p>\n Barrera also felt the district had emphasized math and reading test scores above all else, eliminating anything it considered a distraction. In his view, it had done a \u201chatchet job\u201d on arts and music and \u201call but abandoned career technical education.\u201d<\/p>\n That took a toll on public trust, he said. And it raised questions about the real value of education: \u201cIs it a broad and challenging curriculum that actually students felt connected to that was relevant and meaningful \u2014 or was it drilling down improvements for a standardized test?\u201d<\/p>\n To address its challenges, Barrera says, the school board brought back some electives, had employees take furlough days and built up support for parent engagement.\u00a0<\/p>\n But everything in those first few years was a fight, he recalls \u2014 with the board often split 3-2, and huge battles over deficits and whether to rebuild schools with union labor.<\/p>\n \u201cI should have worked harder at building more consensus around what we were trying to achieve,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, consensus is far easier to come by.<\/p>\n In a district where 60% of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, Barrera and other San Diego Unified leaders have embraced equity as a guiding principle in public education.<\/p>\n Overall, the district has seen academic performance that is stronger than the state average, while sharing a similar demographic profile, data from the California School Dashboard shows.<\/p>\n But all five trustees \u2014 \u201cand now the student board members as well,\u201d Barrera says \u2014 have agreed to focus most of all on those students considered most likely to fall through the cracks without support, known as spotlight students.<\/p>\n \u201cThe definition of the district\u2019s success is not how we do on average overall,\u201d he said. \u201cThe bottom 20% of students, who are struggling the most \u2014 what kind of progress are they making?\u201d<\/p>\n Another focus is on supporting and celebrating English learners.<\/p>\n Barrera also said there is a broad recognition that \u201cwhat has the potential to make California great\u201d is the degree to which the state supports newcomers and English learners.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t act like it\u2019s a deficit for a kid to come to school with a language other than English,\u201d Barrera explained. \u201cThat\u2019s actually an advantage \u2014 and if we foster bilingualism, we\u2019re going to see kids do better at mastering English.\u201d<\/p>\n A COVID-born candidacy<\/p>\n In just a few years, Shaw has become the face of Chino Valley\u2019s school board, along with its habit of making headlines with anti-LGBTQ+ policies \u2014 including removing library books<\/a>, reporting gender-nonconformity<\/a> to students\u2019 parents and banning Pride flags<\/a> in classrooms.<\/p>\n But the board\u2019s conservative reputation didn\u2019t start with her \u2014 back in 2000, the district adopted<\/a> a class on the Bible that raised religious-freedom questions.<\/p>\n Shaw describes the role of parents in public education as a personal one for her.<\/p>\n Her youth in Chino Valley was upended by family strife \u2014 her parents\u2019 separation, her mother\u2019s addiction, time in a women\u2019s shelter and in foster care. Shaw recalls stealing food stamps to feed her siblings and staying home from school to care for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of always had that caretaker kind of fighter spirit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her mother died when Shaw was still a child, and she knew that she, too, wanted to be a mother one day \u2014 and that when she did, she wanted to spare her children what she\u2019d gone through.\u00a0<\/p>\n Shaw wanted to be present for her kids. But California\u2019s cost of living being what it is, she also worked odd jobs before settling into work as a fitness instructor.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a desire to make sure other moms were healthy,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have a healthy mom, and I wanted to be a healthy mom.\u201d<\/p>\n The upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic would mark a turning point for Shaw. Frustrated by remote learning and worried kids were spending too long at computer screens, she joined another parent at a school board meeting. But she felt the board didn\u2019t want to listen to parents and \u201cdidn\u2019t care about kids struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n For years, her tumultuous childhood and her father\u2019s immigrant sensibility had ingrained in her an aversion to taking a stand politically, she said \u2014 \u201cdon\u2019t cause any problems, ruffle any feathers.\u201d<\/p>\n That had changed.<\/p>\n She and other parents began to meet in Sacramento to advocate against legislation they opposed, such as a 2021 law<\/a> that required schools to stock menstrual products in some boys\u2019 bathrooms as well as girls\u2019. She recalls thinking of elected officials at the time: \u201cYou don\u2019t want to give us a seat at the table? We\u2019re going to take the whole darn table.\u201d<\/p>\n Her advocacy drew interest from the Republican Party, and soon she was recruited to run for the Chino Valley Unified school board. At that point, she recalls, \u201cThey all declared \u2018Shaw 2022.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Secrets being kept from parents\u2019<\/p>\n Once elected, she aimed to reverse declines in academic performance from before the COVID-19 pandemic \u2014 and \u201cto make sure our district went in a direction opposite of what California has been going in,\u201d she said. For her, that meant ensuring community support, getting parents involved and getting \u201cideologies\u201d out of schools.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a big challenge, watching things be legislated into the curriculum that shouldn\u2019t have been there,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t reading, writing and math, and pathways to success after high school. Parents not being able to have a seat at the table \u2014 secrets being kept from parents.\u201d<\/p>\n Chino Valley Unified has a student population about one-quarter the size of San Diego Unified, but a similar share is considered economically disadvantaged. State dashboard data shows strong academic performance, which Shaw attributes to support for teachers and success in challenging students.\u00a0<\/p>\n She said she\u2019s tired of hearing about the success of states like Alabama and Mississippi in improving academic outcomes, and about university students needing remedial math<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not rocket science. It\u2019s actually just focusing back on those things, and putting the money and the dedication and the time towards reading, writing, math and training our good teachers \u2014 making it attractive again, so we can get newer teachers to come in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She said she also wants to make sure kids love civics, and although she sits on a commission dedicated to career and technical education, she also wants to make sure students have a viable pathway to four-year college.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the blueprint. I have the tools that we used here in Chino, and those are the same things that I want to take to the state,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her district, she points out, was acknowledged<\/a> by researchers at a Stanford-affiliated think tank for its recovery from pandemic disruptions. It also ensures that teachers are well-paid and that it\u2019s \u201cgetting teachers trained, retaining the newer teachers and living within our means,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But the district has become better known in recent years for its anti-LGBTQ+ efforts, and its battles with state education leaders over them.<\/p>\n Shaw and her board drew notoriety, and litigation, after enacting a policy to require schools to inform parents of\u00a0possible changes to a student\u2019s gender presentation; they famously kicked Thurmond out of a meeting<\/a> on the issue. More recently, she and her board have vocally opposed transgender girls\u2019 participation in girls\u2019 sports.<\/p>\n The boss\u2019s boss<\/p>\n School board trustees have a limited number of roles, but a big one is hiring a superintendent. Looking back on his four hires, Barrera has some regrets about how he helped lead that process \u2014 especially in the case of Cindy Marten.<\/p>\n Marten was still an elementary school principal in Barrera\u2019s subdistrict when she was plucked from relative obscurity to lead the district, with hardly any community engagement.<\/p>\n Just hours after getting the previous superintendent\u2019s resignation, the San Diego Unified board met in closed session, then announced Marten\u2019s hire \u2014 raising questions<\/a> about whether the move complied with state public meetings law.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it becomes clear that the board unanimously knows who we want to hire, it just wouldn\u2019t be honest to go out to the community as if we hadn\u2019t made that decision,\u201d Barrera said at the time.<\/p>\n But the result was a host of public questions and suspicions, and today, Barrera assesses the situation differently.<\/p>\n \u201cThe process to hire her was kind of the opposite of what I think a good process is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Marten served eight years as San Diego Unified superintendent, until she was named to a job in the Biden administration as deputy secretary of education. After she left San Diego Unified, the board hired Lamont Jackson as superintendent in 2022. Two years later, it fired him, after investigating him for sexual harassment allegations.<\/p>\n That investigation began after Barrera learned of the allegations from one of Jackson\u2019s accusers at a breakfast. He told district lawyers, and the board hired an outside law firm to investigate.<\/p>\n Years earlier, the district \u2014 and Barrera \u2014 had also been aware<\/a> of an anonymous 2021 complaint that Jackson might be having an inappropriate relationship with a principal. But Barrera later said the anonymous nature of such a report made it difficult to investigate properly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, the school board president rejects the idea that a lack of institutional processes or safeguards might have led to the situation with Jackson.<\/p>\n![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SUT-L-BARRERA-CAMPAIGN-1.jpg\")
San Diego Unified board president Richard Barrera speaks during the State of the District address at Sherman Elementary School in San Diego in 2017. (Hayne Palmour IV \/ San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Sonja](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IDB-L-SHAWPROFILE-XXXX-23TP.jpg\")
Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified board, talks with guests on Thursday, July 16, after a meeting. (Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise\/SCNG)<\/p>\n![\"Sonja](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/OCR-L-CIFPROTEST-0621-JA-15.jpg\")
Sonja Shaw, the Chino Valley Unified board president, urges the California Interscholastic Federation to ban transgender girls from playing in girls\u2019 sports at a press conference in Costa Mesa on Friday, June 20, 2025. (Jeff Antenore, Contributing Photographer)<\/p>\n![\"Board](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SUT-L-Classified-Layoffs-010.jpg\")
Board members Richard Barrera and Sabrina Bazzo, along with Superintendent Fabi Bagula, listen to people speak at the San Diego Unified School District headquarters on Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Kristian Carreon \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n