While crisscrossing California on the campaign trail to be the state’s next Superintendent of Public Instruction, Sonja Shaw found herself deep in parts of the state she never knew existed. Driving for hours, there was often nothing but open road and breathtaking landscape. At one point in remote Lake County, her phone suddenly flashed “SOS.”
“You see that, God? Even my phone is screaming SOS,” she joked.
But when Shaw connected with the people there and heard their concerns about their children and schools, she realized she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Long before she became one of the most recognizable parental rights voices in California, Sonja Shaw considered herself—and still does—what she calls a “soccer mom.” She was the room mom, the PE mom, the PTO mom—the parent who was constantly present in her daughters’ lives.
Politics was nowhere on her radar. She said that just a few years ago, she did not even know what a California assembly member was and was not involved in party politics. Her life revolved around raising her children, supporting her family, and being active in her community—until California schools were shut down during the COVID lockdowns, and she saw children’s mental health begin to decline in Zoom school.
Today, Shaw serves as president of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board and is running for California Superintendent of Public Instruction. Her rise from politically uninvolved mom to one of the most high-profile education activists in California has been rapid, controversial, and deeply personal.
“People tell me they aren’t political,” Shaw said. “Oh, but guess what? The people who are destroying your kids’ minds are political.”
That realization became the catalyst that pushed Shaw into public life.
Shaw’s story begins with a difficult childhood shaped by addiction, instability, and survival. When she was 9-years-old, her mother died after years of struggling with heroin addiction and mental illness. Bouncing between shelters and foster homes, long before most children are forced to think about responsibility, Shaw said she had already become a caretaker for her younger siblings.
“At an early age, all I ever wanted to be was a mother,” Shaw said.
Instead of being protected, Shaw often found herself protecting others. She remembers hiding food stamps when they arrived because her mother would sell them for drugs. Shaw said she learned at a very young age that if she did not step in, there would not be enough food for the family.
The violence and chaos surrounding addiction also left lasting memories. Shaw recalled one terrifying moment when her mother’s boyfriend nearly shot her after she physically stood in front of her mother in an attempt to protect her.
Those experiences fundamentally shaped how Shaw views the world today.
“God put me through different government systems that were designed to help people, but instead I saw fraud and abuse,” Shaw said.
For years, Shaw focused primarily on raising her children. She was always present and heavily involved in school activities, but hadn’t dedicated much time or thought to the politics of education.
But that changed during the COVID era when California schools shut down, and parents across the state began voicing frustration over closures, radical curriculum, and the growing disconnect between schools and the families they’re supposed to serve.
Shaw said she heard story after story from parents who felt powerless as schools closed their doors and students were isolated from normal life.
“We were hearing horror stories online,” Shaw said. “Parents didn’t know what was being taught to their kids. Schools were shutting families out.”
It was for all of these reasons and more that Shaw pulled her own children from her local public school and made the choice to drive them 45 minutes each way, every day, to a charter school that was open and defying California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s orders not to reopen.
At first, Shaw said she and many other parents simply wanted schools reopened, and they believed elected officials would listen.
“The doors were being slammed in our face when we asked for schools to be opened,” Shaw said.
She began attending school board meetings and preparing speeches to try and force them to listen. But eventually Shaw realized that speaking during public comment was not enough.
That’s when she decided: “We are going to learn what it takes to win a campaign so we can win a seat at the table.”
That decision marked the beginning of Shaw’s entry into politics.
As she became more involved, Shaw said she realized many school boards were heavily influenced by teachers’ unions, while parents were increasingly marginalized.
“Seats were being hijacked by the teacher’s union,” she said.
Then came what Shaw believes was a turning point guided by faith. In 2022, while looking at newly redrawn district maps, she discovered her family home had been shifted into the boundaries of an available school board seat in the Chino Valley Unified School District.
Shaw immediately went upstairs to tell her sleeping husband she wanted to run for school board.
“He said, ‘But, we don’t live in the district,’” Shaw recalled.
After showing him the updated district map, his response changed.
“He said, ‘Well, it’s God’s plan.’”
What followed was a determined, mission-driven, grassroots campaign. Shaw spent six months canvassing neighborhoods throughout the district, often walking between two and six hours every single day with a team of like-minded parent volunteers.
Despite opposition groups spending hundreds of thousands of dollars against her campaign, Shaw won her election and helped flip control of the school board alongside another parent-backed candidate.
Today, all five seats on the Chino Valley Unified School District board are held by parental rights advocates.
Under Shaw’s leadership, the district became one of the most-watched school districts in America after advancing policies requiring schools to notify parents if a student identified as another gender at school.
The backlash from California’s powers-that-be was immediate and intense. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the district. California Superintendent Tony Thurmond personally attended board meetings as tensions escalated. ANTIFA even showed up at a school board meeting.
Board meetings quickly transformed into national flashpoints filled with screaming activists, security concerns, and media attention. Shaw said the pressure and criticism became relentless.
“There are moments when I have a five-minute pity party,” she admitted. “I tell my husband, ‘I can’t do this.’ I’m human. I get a lot of hate.”
At a recent Moms for Liberty candidate event in Burbank, California, for example, pro-trans activists showed up to protest against Shaw because she does not support taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for minors. They repeatedly screamed “Fascist! Fascist!” at her and the other parents gathered for the event.
But Shaw said her husband always reminds her why she continues fighting: “He says, ‘Who do you serve? Put your armor on and get back in there.’”
Despite pressure from far Left activists and the powerful California teachers’ unions, Shaw remains convinced that parents have a moral obligation to become involved in education and public life. For that reason, her mission is much bigger than politics—it’s centered on protecting children and preserving parental authority.
“Newsom messed up,” she said. “He poked the wrong bears in California, the mama and papa bears. We do not give up. We do not submit.”
That same determination now fuels her statewide campaign for California Superintendent of Public Instruction. What began as a self-described soccer mom attending school board meetings has evolved into a political movement driven by parents who believe they are fighting for the future of their children.
“If it means standing in front of a kid to protect them, I will,” Shaw said.
