2024 Election Results: Chino Valley Unified School District board
John Andrew Cervantes, Andrew Cruz, and James Na were leading Tuesday, Nov. 5, in the race for the Chino Valley school board, which has made headlines for its conservative votes in recent years, early election results show.
ee a chart of the latest vote counts
The board has had a four-person conservative majority since 2022, when board President Sonja Shaw and trustee Jonathan Monroe joined.
Two members of that majority, Cruz and Na, sought reelection in Trustee Areas 2 and 5, respectively. Board member Donald Bridge could not run again because trustee area lines were redrawn and he no longer lived in his district.
Trustee Area 1Cervantes and Eric Shamp are vying for the Trustee Area 1 seat. The district was not split into trustee areas until 2022. Cervantes said in a questionnaire from the Southern California News Group that he supports parent notification policies and would prioritize security, academic excellence and support for our teachers while moving away from political agendas and unnecessary programs.
Cervantes was leading with 57.25% of the vote when early results were posted at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Results showed Shamp with 42.7% of the vote.
In his questionnaire, Shamp said the biggest issue facing the Chino Valley Unified School District was poor board leadership and that he would shift the focus back to academic achievement and post-secondary success.
Trustee Area 2Three candidates are running for the Trustee Area 2 seat, incumbent Cruz, Beau McFarland, and Paul Michael Griffin.
In early results, Cruz was leading with 58.40% of the vote. Griffin and McFarland were sitting at 12.87% and 28.72% respectively.
Cruz voted for the parent notification policy , which requires schools to notify parents within three days if their child identifies as transgender, a flag ban barring flags except the American flag, and most recently the no deception policy , which critics call a work around to the state's bar on parent notification policies. He said in his questionnaire that the district's biggest issue is looming budget cuts and that it needs a sustainable path forward in light of this issue.
McFarland, who is challenging Cruz, was endorsed by Our Schools USA, a nonprofit group focused on equality education. In his questionnaire, Cruz said the district needs to stop pursuing costly politically motivated lawsuits and must prioritize fair contracts for teachers and staff. It should incentivize hiring fully certificated teachers, he wrote.
Griffin said he would invest in hiring bilingual aides for English-as-a-Second Language students and would expand free tutoring services by recruiting college student tutors.
Trustee Area 5In Trustee Area 5, incumbent Na, a member of the conservative board majority who voted for the parent notification policy, flag ban and the no deception policy, is running again.
Bobby Omari wrote in his candidate statement that the district should prioritize smaller class sizes, reducing combination classes and invest in recruiting and retaining top educators.
Early results showed Na leading with 64.35%, Omari had 35.65% of the vote.
The board made headlines after passing a parent notification policy in 2023. In June 2023, it passed a policy banning flags other than the American flag from classrooms.
The state sued the board to halt the parent notification policy and in September a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge ruled that the first two parts of the policy were discriminatory and unconstitutional. The third part — which requires notification if a student changes their record — is constitutional, he said. He upheld his judgment in October.
In July, the district sued the state seeking to stop AB 1955 , a state law prohibiting school parent notification policies. Chino Valley argued the law violates the First and 14th amendments as well as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. The lawsuit came a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law.
The board passed a "no deception" policy in October.
