Parents battle gender secrecy in California schools

Before COVID-19 precautions temporarily shuttered schools, Sonja Shaw never paid attention to politics. The wife and mother of two children in Southern California’s Chino Valley Unified School District said that, before the shutdown, she didn’t even know what a school board was, let alone that elected officials on the board made decisions for her children. She was a busy soccer mom who owned a business and led a Bible study.

But then Shaw began researching school boards and discovered that many promoted gender ideology that she thought pulled children away from their parents. She wasn’t the only one. Shaw and other parents organized a grassroots coalition and started attending school board meetings. She later became president of the group.

“I was just trying to lead a bunch of parents to make sure we had a voice at the table,” said Shaw, who said she had no thought of running for an elected position. God had other plans, she said. Last November, she and another concerned parent won two seats on the Chino Valley school board.

Within months, the board began working on a new K-12 policy that would require schools to notify parents if their child wants to identify as a different gender. The district consulted parents and its attorney before presenting the policy proposal to the public.

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