Conservative Activist Sonja Shaw Advances in State Superintendent Race

Shaw, who has amassed 24.8% of votes in early reporting on Wednesday, rose to notoriety in 2023 after she ousted the current superintendent, Tony Thurmond, from a school board meeting in the Inland Empire. Thurmond said on social media that students had invited him to speak in opposition to a proposed policy that would force schools to inform parents if their child identified as transgender, mirroring failed statewide legislation, before the Chino Valley School Board heckled and forcibly removed him.

Shaw and Barrera were among 10 candidates in the race for the job of overseeing the state’s 10,000 public schools as they grapple with funding cuts, higher costs and the challenges of AI.

Shaw has built her campaign around the culture war issue of transgender rights in schools — particularly opposing transgender girls’ participation on athletic teams that match their gender identity.

“Your daughters are in locker rooms with boys all across California,” she said at a press conference days before the election at the California Interscholastic Federation’s Track and Field championships, where transgender athlete AB Hernandez won two state titles. CIF reinstituted a pilot policy launched ahead of the competition that allows an additional girl to compete and medal in any event that includes a transgender athlete.

“When are you going to stand up and say no? … Fix it at the ballot box,” Shaw continued, standing alongside Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton.

Shaw told KQED on Wednesday that her victory sends a clear message: “Parents and people all throughout California have had enough.”

But Barrera, who’s been endorsed by the California Teachers Association and Thurmond, is likely to pick up most of the votes from a slew of Democratic opponents. He currently sits comfortably ahead of the pack with 18.9% of the votes.

Barrera has been a school board member in San Diego since 2008 and served as board president during San Diego Unified’s rise as one of the top-performing urban districts in the country.

Barrett Snider, an education lobbyist with Capitol Advisors, said he expects the school board president to pick up supporters from educator Wendy Castaneda Leal, Los Angeles Community College District board member Nichelle Henderson and multiple statewide lawmakers, who garnered between 8% and 10% of the vote.

“[Shaw] got the most because she was really the only prominent conservative running in that race. And then you had just a large bench of sort of blue candidates,” he told KQED.

Snider said that CTA has a long track record of successfully ushering candidates into the state superintendent’s seat. He expects that now that Barrera is presumed to advance to the general election, the union will ramp up opposition to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to move the Department of Education under his control — changing the nature of the superintendent role.

In Newsom’s 2026-27 budget, which suggested overhauling California’s education governance system, the state superintendent would mostly serve as an independent advocate for the state’s public education system.

Barrera called the plan to move the Department of Education under the governor’s office “undemocratic.” The state Senate rejected Newsom’s proposal in their version of the budget, and the Assembly has proposed handling the potential restructuring through different legislation. Newsom terms out this year.

Arne Johnson, an advocate with the Bay Area-based transgender rights group Rainbow Family Action, said he wasn’t surprised to see Shaw advance to the general election, but worries that she’ll continue to have a platform for “stunts” and “politically motivated heat” toward transgender children.

“She’ll get trounced in the general election,” he said. “It’s just more funding and more time for her to cause damage.”

Barrera said he respects that Shaw — as a school board president — brings a local perspective to the race.

“What I don’t respect is that she chooses to use her platform and influence to divide her community, and to single out groups of students,” he said. “It’s two very different visions of what California public schools can be. And I’m confident that in the general election, Californians are going to side with a positive unifying vision.”