In liberal bastions such as Austin, Texas; in “purple” states where the direction of local public policy changes with every election; and even in suburban areas that lean conservative, the pressure on public schools to conform to a new wave of left-wing social ideas has intensified in this decade. Stories of schools shutting parents out of decisions about their child’s gender identity, or elementary students being indoctrinated under the guise of sex education, have awakened a small but growing contingent of Christ-followers who are contending for the educational and spiritual interests of schoolchildren. Decision recently spoke with several of these bold believers. We hope and pray that readers will likewise be inspired to make a difference in Jesus’ Name in their local schools and communities. 

CHINO VALLEY, California

Sonja Shaw will tell you she was the unlikeliest of candidates when she filed to run for the elected school board office she now holds. But she knows in her heart it was all God’s doing—His orchestration and timing. 

Four years ago, Shaw knew little about politics, and even less about her local school board. She had been an elementary schoolroom mom and a volunteer P.E. helper.

But when the COVID-19 lockdowns in spring 2020 put the brakes on in-person school for her younger teen girls, Shaw knew she needed to become more involved with the school system as a whole. Her girls, by then in middle school, depended and thrived on the daily routine of attending classes and athletics.

Along with a core parent group of about 15 people, she started attending school board meetings. It was also around this time that Shaw and her family left a church that had begun drifting from sound Bible teaching and started attending Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, where Pastor Jack Hibbs was preaching clear Biblical messages. Among them were sermons that touched on some of the issues she was beginning to notice in the schools.

For example, the district was intent on keeping parents out of the loop about policies related to their children’s sexual choices. And the state of California, along with radical activists, were pushing these progressive ideologies.

Shaw’s parent group tabbed her to run for an open school board seat in the November 2022 election. She went home that night and told her husband what had happened. “Well,” he told her, “I guess God opened the door.”

Her opponent, backed by a teacher’s union, poured nearly $150,000 into the campaign while Shaw, with a couple of dozen volunteers and little money, knocked on every door in the boundary area and held driveway conversations—with Shaw sometimes canvassing six hours a day.

It worked—she won by a little more than 300 votes out of about 10,000 votes cast in an election where the board switched from a 3-2 liberal majority to a 4-1 conservative majority. At her first meeting, Sonja was elected board president. Changes came quickly. In June of last year, the board voted to remove Pride flags and begin a policy in which only the American and California flags were allowed on school property.

The next month, Chino Valley became the first California district to require school officials to notify parents if a student expresses a desire to change their gender identity. California’s attorney general quickly sued the district. In response, the board this spring amended the policy to say parents must be informed if a student desires to change anything in his or her school record. The altered language accomplishes much of the same thing as the former policy without singling out LGBTQ students, Shaw said. It remains to be seen whether the policy will withstand legal challenges after California passed a law in July that outlaws parental notification policies pertaining to sexual orientation or gender identity.

But as Shaw enters her second school year as president of the Chino Valley United School District school board, her efforts have come at a cost. The Shaws have received multiple death threats via email, social media, mail and on her school district phone number.

Shaw told Decision: “I remember my husband telling me, ‘Sonja, we have the armor on. We’re doing God’s work. He’s not going to let anybody hurt us.’ And you know, that was just another reminder that we are going to push forward. We’re not going to stop.”

AUSTIN, Texas

In the fall of 2015, Caryl Ayala learned a new term—queering—while preparing for her school year teaching in the pre-K program at the city’s Odom Elementary. The term was being used to describe efforts to implement a new initiative at Odom and at other Austin Independent School District schools by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s most influential LGBTQ lobbying organization.

Ayala, who viewed her teaching career as an extension of her Christian faith, was entering her 20th year, the majority of those in Austin. She never expected to be asked to read books to 4-year-old students like My Princess Boy and Jacob’s New Dress—both about young boys who like to wear girls’ clothing. 

“This was the first year of ‘queering’ our school district,” said Ayala, “which means in our case, the Human Rights Campaign came to our school and were training teachers to affirm LGBTQ and carry that into the classroom by introducing those concepts to children at young ages.”

Odom Elementary, Ayala said, was populated by a heavily first-generation Hispanic student population with an “almost non-existent” PTA and low parent participation because of the language barrier. 

“We were low performing on the state’s standardized tests, yet instead of helping prepare us to raise those scores in math or reading or writing, we had six one-hour trainings from the fall to the spring on how to teach our kids lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender concepts.”

Ayala began to notice that she was among the very few teachers and aides who would ask questions at the trainings and in faculty meetings; she figured the principal, who was very supportive of the trainings, had her pegged as a nonconformist.

She and her husband talked and prayed about it, and they decided she would try to ride out the year, keeping most of her opinions to herself and stonewalling on using the LGBTQ books and teaching prompts in her classes. Still, Ayala said she was having trouble sleeping, knowing that parents would largely disapprove of what was being taught.

Toward the end of the school year, Ayala announced her resignation. “My principal was very happy to see me go. They had been gauging my commitment.”

But Ayala was far from done with education. In 2017, she co-founded Concerned Parents of Texas, which works to inform parents of their rights in the school setting in Texas. She has traveled and spoken often to parent and church groups about how to effect change in their local school districts. 

Like Sonja Shaw in California, Ayala has drawn vicious opposition. She got her first death threat in July. 

“I draw comfort in knowing I’m doing what God called me to do, and comfort in knowing He left me in my teaching job knowing exactly what was coming down the road and took me out of that when His timing was right.”

The Ayalas have now moved out of Austin, but she said she continues to pray for the city, “that more people would radically come to know Jesus Christ as Savior, and for Christians to be bold rather than living in fear.”

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Virginia

Kari LaBell believes it was a call from God: “You’re going to run for school board.”

“I thought to myself, I don’t know. And the message came to me again. I said, ‘I can’t do this without Your help, Lord.’ And He did help. At the time I was having trouble walking; I needed a hip replacement,” recalled LaBell, in her eighth year of retirement after teaching special education for 50 years—30 of those in Loudoun County, Virginia, where she now sits on one of the most closely watched and contentious school boards in the nation.

Loudoun County has been featured prominently by major news outlets for several headline-grabbing stories: the father of a 15-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted in a girls’ bathroom by a male student was arrested during a school board meeting, later resulting in a lawsuit against Loudoun County schools and a full pardon of the father by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Prior to that, the school district, on the outer reaches of the Washington, D.C., sprawl, drew widespread controversy for pushing racially charged materials critics called Marxist propaganda. 

Well aware of the fray she was entering, LaBell obeyed the call. She received lots of encouragement and support from fellow church members. And she relied heavily on connections with thousands of Loudoun County families who knew her from her many years of teaching, some of them former students.

“I won by a 2-to-1 margin” with the least amount of money raised, she said, which helped conservatives gain three of the board’s nine seats. Loudoun has more than 100 schools, and LaBell has been working diligently to stand for Biblical, commonsense values. 

Her election last November came as Virginia schools were given new model policies by Gov. Youngkin, a Republican elected in 2022, directing them to enact new rules safeguarding parental rights and sex-segregated spaces and athletics. The new rules were a departure from the model policy drafted under former Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat. 

So far, Loudoun, like some other Virginia districts, has dragged its feet, refusing to make changes to the gender policies despite LaBell’s work on the committee charged with addressing the new state policy. Meanwhile, LaBell is playing the long game, building alliances where possible and seeking incremental victories.  

“God wanted me here, so here I am.” For those considering a run for office, LaBell says, “Follow the burden that God has placed on your heart. He’s not putting that message there for nothing.” ©2024 BGEA 

Photo: Pablo Unzueta