The Kids aren’t all right…Because of the school board

How did we get to the point that school boards are actively targeting and attacking these vulnerable students?

CHINO, Calif. - A banner was intentionally placed on a freeway overpass this past week that read, “THE RAINBOW BELONGS TO GOD, NOT THE LGBTQ.” It was placed by a hate group that is becoming an unfortunate fixture in the Chino Valley, the Proud Boys. They are not alone.

Imagine being a LGBTQIA student and driving by this sign one week after four members of your school board voted to ban pride flags in your schools and are set to pass a policy on July 20 that would out LGBTQIA students. The message that you are receiving from the people who are elected to care about your education and success in school? You are not safe. You are not protected. Even further, you are a target. How did we get here? How did we get to the point in my community that our school board is actively targeting and attacking these vulnerable students? It was not always this way.

I have lived in Chino nearly all of my life, and I had never seen signs (literal or otherwise) for hate groups in this community, even when I served as a member of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board and, most recently, as its Board President, until the 0 election. I have first-hand knowledge and a front row seat to how manufactured lies and hate bring corrosion to a community, and it starts in the public schools.

If the Proud Boys sign was a one-off, it would certainly be alarming. What is egregious is that it is part of a targeted campaign against LGBTQIA students led by far-right evangelical churches meddling in politics (a tax-status conversation for another time) and astroturf political groups who dug up school board candidates they could easily puppet to do their bidding.

What brought hate groups to the Chino Valley? The 2022 election for two school board seats. Many people do not pay attention to who is elected to school boards or what they actually do. Chino Valley Unified was known for its good schools, so most people were satisfied with them. That is, most people. Ours is a cautionary tale.

My co-founder of Our Schools USA, Kristi Hirst (a former CVUSD teacher and parent of three children in our schools), and I, knocked on thousands of doors and talked to voters. For most people, the quality of the schools and the prospects for their children post-graduation were the top priority, but they had no idea who was on the Board or what was happening. The manufactured chaos and crisis that was routine in our Board meetings for two years was not common knowledge, something that is hard to realize when you experience it every other week.

Yet, we started hearing accusations bubbling up on doorsteps. “Christina wants boys in girls’ bathrooms” was a common refrain. We realized that my Moms for Liberty opponent, who eventually became the new school Board President who is the primary facilitator of hate against LGBTQIA students, and her volunteers, were telling this lie and others door-todoor.

I want to be clear: hate is highly motivating. The voters who had been misled by what they believed to be the “takeover” of our schools by LGBTQIA issues went out and voted. On a rainy day and a very low turnout election, 317 votes decided the election in our trustee area. Over 1,400 voters who cast a ballot for higher o ce did not even bother to go down the ballot to vote for school board in our trustee area. The Board majority flipped.

The effects Direct discrimination, harassment, and intimidation of CVUSD students and staff. Today’s CVUSD Board actions and policies are a far cry from the District’s motto, which includes phrases such as “Safe Schools” and “Positive School Climate.”

The Board President placed a resolution for a vote on the agenda to support AB 1314, the controversial parental notification bill introduced by a Republican Assemblymember (who, by the way, is not our Assemblymember). The bill had not even been heard by the California State Legislature’s Assembly Education Committee, and the Board passed a resolution supporting it. Three days later, the Chair of the Assembly Education Committee denied it a hearing. It was a contentious Board meeting all for nothing, but a meeting created out of a manufactured crisis: the myth that public schools are making children identify as LGBTQIA.

Two members of the Board have a history of comments and actions targeting LGBTQIA students. In November 2021, a Board Member brought a resolution to deny transgender students access to school activities and facilities. Let’s not pretend that he did not know it was illegal: the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Attorney General advised the District of such. The purpose was to place the Board majority at the time, two of us who were up for re-election the next fall, in the position of voting against the resolution because it would break California law. I am not sure why anyone would expect a former police o cer, a lawyer, and a former teacher to do otherwise, but this opened the floodgates to the manufactured crisis around LGBTQIA youth in our schools.

You may be asking yourself a logical question: why would school board members find it acceptable that hate groups are coming into our community, attending our board meetings, and threatening our LGBTQIA students and staff

The outrageous answer? They have invited them in (and posed in photos with them), inviting local leadership in the hate group Gays Against Groomers to lead the Pledge of Allegiance at a Board meeting.

It’s not just the Chino Valley. Within a 60-mile radius of my community, school boards and districts in Glendale, North Hollywood, Orange Unified, Placentia- orba Linda, Temecula

Valley, and Redlands have been overcome with hate groups and increasing hostility and violence towards LGBTQIA youth. They are fed misinformation and myths about what is happening in public schools. This list continues to grow as these hate groups, enabled by newly elected far-right wing extremists, go from district to district in California. Word to the wise: your district could be next, regardless of where you live. ou are not immune to this.

Even if these crises from these hateful people and groups are manufactured, they have real impacts on students. It really does make a difference when students know their school board has their best interest and well-being in mind.

At my last meeting, I saw the fear in students’ eyes about what was going to happen when their Board no longer enforced the law and protected them. I can only imagine what that must be like for these kids. We adults are supposed to be protecting kids, not making them feel unsafe when they go to school every day.

In districts with flipped extreme boards, we are not going to stop their hateful actions, but we should be focused on stalling their implementation, using whatever legal tools are available to make this happen. In districts on the precipice, we need to take action now to prevent another community, and another LGBTQIA student, from becoming a target. The 2024 election is sooner than you think, which is a chance to take back these boards in the best interest of all students.

I can sound the alarm bells, but, really, it is time to start listening to our students, including this local high school student who sent our organization this anonymously:

As a gay student, especially when I initially transferred to [school removed], it was very difficult to adapt to that campus and accept my identity at that time. When I came out to my peers, I faced discrimination and homophobia as a result, creating rifts in friendships and feelings that I may never be seen in the same way again. Compounded with this and being reintegrated into a totally new school [identifying detail omitted] absolutely no support system, it was a truly lonely and isolating experience that I wouldn’t want my worst enemies to feel because of how awful it was. Despite this, when I first walked onto campus and saw a small little pride flag in my English 9 Honors class, it made me feel seen and safe, at least in that classroom. Although it may seem superficial or small to someone who wouldn’t understand or feel this perspective, seeing that small piece of allyship was truly helpful in making me feel safe and welcome.

The kids aren’t all right, but we have the power to help them be. We need to attend school board meetings and speak out. We need to donate to and support candidates who actually care about quality public education. We need to go down the ballot and vote for these school positions. We need to be vocal that we will not tolerate this hate.