Sonja

Legal challenges flared this week over an Inland Empire school district’s alleged removal of library books and, separately, on its efforts to require parental notification on student gender identity — policies strongly supported by the school board president, Sonja Shaw, a leading contender to become the next state schools superintendent.

One policy of Chino Valley Unified allows parents and others to force the removal of school library books to which they object, resulting in books with sexual content or with LGBTQ+ themes being pulled off shelves, according to a complaint filed this week by a leading public-interest law firm and local parents.

The complaint, filed with the California Department of Education, asks the state agency to investigate whether education codes have been violated. The complaint also seeks to invalidate the policy and have books returned to shelves.

The other Chino Valley Unified policy under legal scrutiny would require school employees to notify parents when students express gender-identity issues at school — even if the students want to keep this information secret from their parents. The Chino Valley school board passed its notification policy in July 2023, but a state judge put the policy on hold and subsequently ruled it illegal.

However, the Chino Valley school board is seeking to reinstate the policy in light of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. A court hearing on the matter had been scheduled for Wednesday, but has been moved to Sept. 15.

The San Bernardino County school system of 26,000 students adopted both policies under the leadership of school board President Shaw, a conservative Republican running for the office of state superintendent of public instruction. Shaw finished first in the June primary among 10 candidates, seven of them Democrats who appeared to split the Democratic vote among them.

On Wednesday, Shaw had not yet had an opportunity to review the book-policy complaint, but said both policies ultimately look out for children by safeguarding the rights of parents.

“I believe the larger issue is whether parents are going to remain the primary decision-makers for their children or whether Sacramento continues to chip away at that role,” Shaw said. “I will always stand on the side of parents.”

The book policy “is about ensuring that sexually explicit material is not placed in the hands of children in our schools,” Shaw said. “That is a reasonable responsibility for a school board, and I believe parents overwhelmingly expect us to exercise that responsibility.”

The challenge to the policies comes in the context of the November election, which pits Shaw against second-place finisher Richard Barrera, a Democrat.

Barrera said that some parents may agree with some of Shaw’s positions on culture war issues, but not with her entire agenda.

“I would say that the overwhelming majority of parents of students in our public schools find the agenda that Sonja Shaw is promoting to be terrifying,” Barrera said. “The idea that we’re going to restrict access to books for students, the idea that we are going to pick on and bully LGBTQ students, and particularly transgender students, is not a reflection of the values of parents in California.”

Barrera, the president of the San Diego Unified school board, also works as a senior state Education Department staffer, but has no involvement in handing complaints such as the one just filed, the department said.

Books removed from shelves

The Chino Valley school board adopted the book restriction policy in October 2023.

The district policy permits any community member to call for removing a library book. Such a demand, according to the policy, must be acted on immediately, with the book’s removal occurring within three days. A subsequent hearing within 45 days allows for public testimony, board discussion and a board vote, which would be the final decision.

Before the policy was adopted, community members had complained in public hearings about specific books and dramatically read aloud sexually explicit passages at board meetings to make their point. Defenders of the books said the passages were taken out of context in works that needed to be considered in their entirety.

The district began acting on its new book-removal policy before receiving any formal complaints, according to the filing submitted to state officials by Los Angeles-based Public Counsel.

In the fall of 2023, district officials asked schools for an inventory of specific titles public speakers had complained about at board meetings. Also included in the inventory were some books perceived as likely to be challenged.

Shortly after, parents and employees were no longer able to find copies of some of these books on the public-facing, book-search system, these critics told The Times in early 2024.

During this early period, only one formal complaint about a specific book was immediately received, a November 2023 request to remove the Bible “in all its forms” based on the Bible’s sexual content. This request was not carried out, the Public Counsel complaint states.

Other requests were submitted in October 2024 and covered 14 books, including: “Looking for Alaska” by John Green; “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas; “Beloved” by Toni Morrison; “Juliet Takes a Breath” by Gabby Rivera; and “More Happy Than Not” by Adam Silvera.

The complaint to the Education Department also alleges the removal this year from at least one library of an unnamed book by Maya Angelou and an unnamed middle school book that touched on sexual identity.

The complaint alleges that the Chino Valley policy is unlawful under state law and unconstitutional under state and federal law. It also alleges that, even if the policy were to survive the legal test, Chino Valley did not follow its own rules. The complaint states there is no evidence of any public hearings or board votes on a challenged or removed book.

The state Education Department had no immediate response to the filing of the complaint.

A consistent theme in the removed books was LGBTQ+ content, according to the complaint. Targeting that content would amount to unlawful discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals, who are explicitly protected against discrimination in California, said Elizabeth Graves, senior staff attorney in the educational equity unit of Public Counsel.

Ultimately, books were removed “not because they contain sexually obscene material, but because they contain content protected by law,” Graves said. “The school district appears to be targeting books that are featuring LGBTQ people, or written by LGBTQ authors.”

The state education code, Graves said, “really calls out how important accurate and inclusive education is for students, especially LGBTQ people, Black, Indigenous, and other peoples of color.”

Graves said that Public Counsel filed its complaint with the California Education Department because it can carry out an expedited complaint process in as little as 60 days.

Shaw said that if anyone questioned the district’s management of its policy, the matter could have been brought directly to district officials. Her issue, she said, is simply sexually explicit, graphic description — not references to sex. Parents can find that explicit material for their children in a public library if they choose, she added.

Parent notification on gender issues

Chino Valley became the first school district in California to adopt a parental notification policy in July 2023. It required that a school administrator, counselor or teacher notify parents if a student requests to be treated as a gender different from the student’s biological sex in any facet of school or in school records.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta quickly sued to stop the policy and San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael Sachs barred nearly all its elements. But he did allow parents to be notified of any student requests to change school records; for example, if a student requested to be known by a different name on a class roster.

In March, however, in a California case, a U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled that parents had a right to be told — if they asked — about their child’s sexual orientation issues at school. A lower court in the same case — Mirabelli vs. Bonta — had already ruled that school staff could not be barred from informing parents if they wanted to.

Since then, California Justice Center and Advocates for Faith & Freedom have filed a motion asking the state court to dissolve the injunction blocking Chino Valley’s original parent notification policy.

“Chino Valley is now in the impossible position of being subject to two conflicting permanent injunctions,” said attorney Emily Rae.

“The original policy was important because parents have a fundamental right to know what is happening with their own children,” Shaw said. “The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the fundamental role parents play in raising and directing the upbringing of their children. Schools should not replace parents.”

Bonta’s office asserted in court papers that the original ruling should stand because the other recent rulings did not directly apply and because the Chino policy “discriminated against transgender and gender nonconforming students by forcing school personnel to ‘out’ those students to their parents, even if their parents have not asked for such notification; even when disclosure would result in physical, emotional, or psychological abuse; and even when less harmful alternatives … were available.”

The November runoff for state schools superintendent will pit two school board presidents — one a union-friendly liberal and the other a Trump-aligned conservative — against each other.

Republican, Sonja Shaw finished in first place in this week’s primary with 24.5% of votes counted through June 4. Democrat Richard Barrera had19.3%.

Shaw’s margin seems comfortable even with more ballots to be counted, with Barrera firmly in the runoff. The third-leading vote-getter, Wendy Castaneda Leal, was about 10 percentage points behind him.

The race creates a clear contrast between candidates and their vision for California’s schools.

While Shaw, 43, has not typically spoken to Trump’s immigration policies in relation to schooling, she is in accord with the Trump administration education agenda, including banning trans-athletes from women’s and girls’ sports and notifying parents when a child expresses gender-identity issues at school.

Under Shaw’s leadership, the school board in Chino Valley Unified, located in San Bernardino County, also approved a policy that permits parents to challenge books in school libraries.

Barrera, 59, is the board president of San Diego Unified, the second-largest school system in the state. He is a former union official who has developed strong bonds with the teachers union during his long board tenure.

That history helped him win the endorsement of the California Teachers Assn., which poured about $5 million into an independent campaign on his behalf.

Barrera acknowledges that this support made the difference in his leap ahead of other strong Democratic candidates.

Shaw has framed her campaign as a populist effort against a failed and self-interested status quo establishment.

“I didn’t get into this race because I was a politician,” Shaw said in a statement. “I got into it because I was a mom who saw too many families being ignored, too many classrooms falling behind, and too many elected officials unwilling to stand up for our kids.”

Barrera said he is ready to focus on the job of helping students learn more effectively.

“We see examples of schools that are delivering,” Barrera said. “The answers are all around us. The challenge for us as a state is to learn from educators in the local community about what is beating the odds and then take those practices to scale.”

Barrera speaks of an “assault” by the Trump administration on immigrant families: “I’m going to stand up to that assault.”

Barrera, who is a senior adviser to outgoing state Superintendent Tony Thurmond, praises the record of his boss.

Shaw, in contrast, once threw Thurmond out of her local school board meeting.

Lance Christensen, a conservative education analyst who ran unsuccessfully for the office four years ago against Thurmond, is ready for a spirited campaign that “is about to go nuclear.”

“Sonja Shaw pulled out an impressive primary win as an unabashed parental rights advocate while successfully running her local school district,” Christensen said.

“Should Shaw weather the political maelstrom that is about to hit her with tens of millions of dollars from the entrenched left,” he added, “she will have a bigger bully pulpit to shame the people in power who have made California’s education system the laughing-stock of the nation.”

Veteran Democratic political consultant Larry Levine predicted that, in November, Democrats will consolidate around Barrera just like Republicans did around Shaw in the primary — likely leading to a different order of finish in November.

“She consolidated the Republican vote and the Democrats spread like butter on warm bread,” Levine said. “It will be a far different story in the general. CTA will step up with the money to make sure their candidate wins.”

One of the trailing Democrats — former state Legislative leader Anthony Rendon —has already endorsed Barrera.

Rendon said that Barrera “is qualified, shares my values, and has spent his career fighting for public education. He is the candidate who will stand up to and defeat the dangerous, extremist ideology of Sonja Shaw.”

The state superintendent has limited authority over school districts, which are locally managed. The officeholder instead manages the California Department of Education. This agency guides local school districts and also provides partial oversight. The state superintendent also typically takes advantage of the bully pulpit on education issues.

The office has an uncertain future because Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a proposal to reimagine the office and redistribute some of its duties.

Sonja Shaw — a Trump-aligned conservative Republican whose public profile rose as she became identified with culture-war causes, including banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports — has emerged as the leading vote-getter in the June primary for California’s superintendent of public instruction.

With more than 80% of precincts at least partially reporting, Shaw was well ahead of Democrat Richard Barrera, holding a lead that would be difficult to surmount.

Both Shaw and Barrera are school board presidents.

Shaw heads the elected Board of Education for Chino Valley Unified in San Bernardino County, a diverse but substantially conservative inland portion of Southern California.

Barrera heads the school board of San Diego Unified, the state’s second largest school district, serving an area with liberal leanings, but that is also politically diverse.

In the primary Shaw was greatly helped by a candidate field that included seven Democrats — most with a voter and financial base that would make them competitive. Incoming results show they divided votes among themselves.

Shaw managed to consolidate the Republican vote, which put her on top for the primary. A second Republican candidate finished far behind her.

On Tuesday night, Shaw sounded hopeful and confident that her campaign themes were resonating beyond her conservative roots.

“I am humbled and grateful that Californians from every corner of our state have rallied behind this campaign,” Shaw said in a statement. “What we’ve built is more than a campaign. It’s a diverse movement of communities who believe our schools can do better and who are determined to make that happen.”

Among its high-profile actions, the Chino Valley board majority put forward a policy that would require parents to be notified if their child expressed gender-identity issues at school. Shaw and her allies also approved a policy that allows parents to challenge the content of library books.

Positioned in a runoff against one Democrat — in a state where Democrats dominate — makes for a challenging campaign.

“Tonight is not the finish line,” Shaw said. “It’s the beginning of the final stretch.”

Barrera, who was not available for comment late Tuesday night, benefited immensely from a $5 million independent expenditure campaign from the California Teachers Assn., which, in the recent past, has seemed determined to spend whatever it takes to get an ally into the state superintendent’s office.

Barrera, besides his work as a longtime public official, has been a senior aide to current state Superintendent Tony Thurmond. Thurmond could not run again because of term limits and instead mounted an unsuccessful campaign for governor.

The state superintendent has limited authority over school districts, which are locally managed. The officeholder instead manages the California Department of Education. This agency guides local school districts and also provides partial oversight. The state superintendent also typically takes advantage of the bully pulpit on education issues.

The office has an uncertain future because Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a proposal to reimagine the office and redistribute some of its duties.