The California Megachurch Pushing Public Schools to the Far Right
The California Megachurch Pushing Public Schools to the Far Right
From fights over LGBT rights to prayer at school board meetings, Chino Valley public schools have become ground zero for the culture wars.
Ummm.. I do appreciate the article but the title is so weird (it's the actual article title not OP fault really). Below is literally the only mention of a megachurch is this, and it doesn't even name the church or the pastor. It's super strange they made that the focus and not anything in the rest of the article which frankly is all pretty headline worthy for southern California.
Sonja Shaw, who was elected to the Chino Valley Unified School District board of education last November with an assist from a local megachurch and its Christian nationalist pastor
I'd really like to find out who the church and pastor are so I can have the context and be able to look them up further. Maybe someone else knows but my googling didn't turn up much. It might be Calvary Chapel Chino Hills evangelical megachurch, as they were mentioned in another article here**
Yes that is the church
Anyone more first hand familiar with the politics of Chino Valley? At a glance, it's a solidly blue district and not where I'd expect this sort of culture war grand standing. Feels like an artifact of the weird nature of school boards where usually sleepy off year elections sometimes explode and elect crazies who have a small dedicated groups of voters.
Mrs. Shaw received 51.58 percent of the votes (5,190) and Mrs. Gagnier received 48.42 percent (4,873).
Not to be not alarmed, but seems more like an aberration. There's a good reason why school board candidates tend to run on this:
Mrs. Shaw, who campaigned on parental rights, said her goals include getting the school district back to the basics with reading, writing, and math, teaching age-appropriate curriculum, and ensuring transparency with parents.
And not culture war nonsense. I feel like Cruz and Na have likely avoided too much attention, but tying themselves to a kook who is turning school board meetings into a circus with national attention is a bad strategy going into an on-cycle election in a blue district. Unless they don't want their seats, then maybe it's a great strategy.