The president of the school board in Chino Valley announced Friday she’ll run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2026. Sonja Shaw has been a leader of the parental rights movement in California.
Since Shaw was elected to the Chino school board in 2022, she’s drawn national attention for pushing controversial policies. She championed allowing the board to ban books it deems sexually explicit and requiring teachers to out transgender students to their parents.
Shaw says she got into politics during COVID because she didn’t like schools’ mask and vaccine mandates. She says she can only do so much in Chino.
"At this point, I think the next step is, since I'm hitting a wall here, to help more children throughout California, is to go up to the state level," said Shaw.
Meanwhile, Connie Leyva, KVCR’s executive director and a former state senator, had announced in 2021 that she might run for the job.
She confirmed to KVCR that she will not.
Note: KVCR management was not involved in the reporting of this story and it was edited by our partners at the California Newsroom.