Last month I wrote about the historic California superintendent race — two sitting school board presidents facing off to run 10,000 schools and a $100 billion budget. The piece asked a straightforward question: Does governing one board meeting every two weeks prepare you to run an entire state education system?

The answer was no. But that piece was about the candidates.

This one is about you — your board, your students, and what happens after November 3.

Because here’s what I know from working with school boards across the country: whoever wins, your board’s job is about to get harder. And the boards that prepare for it starting now — not after the election — will be the ones that protect their students from the whiplash.

The Two Scenarios

Let me be clear about what I’m not doing. I’m not endorsing a candidate. I’m not telling you which outcome is better for California education. What I am doing is laying out what each win means for your board — so you can prepare.

Scenario A: Shaw Wins

Sonja Shaw’s campaign is built on a single proposition: local boards should have more control, and the state has too much of it. If she wins, expect a rapid shift in what the state demands from you.

You will face pressure on parental notification policies. The fight that started in Chino Valley — requiring schools to notify parents when a student changes their gender identity or sexual orientation — will go statewide. Your board will need to decide where it stands on a question that previously belonged to individual districts. And the state superintendent’s office will have tools to push compliance.

Curriculum transparency will become a compliance issue. Expect state-level requirements around what curricula must be posted, how parents can challenge materials, and what “opt-out” rights families have. Boards that haven’t reviewed their curriculum adoption processes in the last three years will be scrambling.

Local board alignment with conservative education priorities will be the new litmus test. Not because Shaw will mandate it directly — she can’t. But because the pressure from organized parent groups, emboldened by a sympathetic state superintendent, will intensify at every board meeting. Boards that have clear governance norms and decision-making frameworks will weather this. Boards that don’t will be consumed by it.

Scenario B: Barrera Wins

Richard Barrera’s campaign is built on institutional partnership — unions, charter networks, legislative allies, and equity frameworks. If he wins, expect a different kind of pressure.

Equity frameworks become state expectations. Barrera has spent his San Diego USD tenure championing equity-focused policies. At the state level, he’ll have the platform to push those frameworks into every district’s LCAP requirements. Boards that already have equity goals baked into their strategic plans will be ahead of the curve. Boards that don’t will find themselves reacting to state templates.

Union partnerships will be the operating model. With $5 million in CTA backing, Barrera’s administration will be union-friendly by design. That doesn’t mean bad policy — strong labor partnerships can produce great outcomes. But boards that have adversarial relationships with their local unions will find the state no longer neutral. The ground shifts under those boards.

Funding redistribution will accelerate. Barrera’s platform emphasizes more public funding for student support services and teacher workforce development. More funding sounds good. But it almost always comes with strings — mandates on how it’s spent, reporting requirements, and accountability measures. Boards that don’t have clear student outcome goals will find themselves spending money on state priorities instead of local ones.

The Common Thread: More State Involvement

Here’s what both scenarios have in common.

Whether the next superintendent is Shaw or Barrera, the state of California is going to be more involved in local governance decisions than it has been in decades.

Think about what each candidate actually wants to do with the office:

  • Shaw wants to use it to enforce parental rights and transparency mandates across all 1,000 districts.
  • Barrera wants to use it to push equity frameworks and funding redistribution across all 1,000 districts.

Both of those are expansionary visions of the state superintendent’s role. Neither candidate is running to be a caretaker. Neither is running to leave local boards alone.

And both face a governor who wants to strip the office of its power — meaning whoever wins will be fighting for relevance from day one, which tends to make people more aggressive, not less.

The bottom line: your board will have less autonomy over the next four years, regardless of the election outcome. Your job is to make sure that doesn’t mean less progress for your students.

What Your Board Can Do Right Now

This is where the ESB framework comes in. Not as a sales pitch — as an anchor.

Your board needs two things between now and November, regardless of who you support or who wins:

1. Goal Clarity — Get Specific, Now

If the state is going to push mandates at you — whether conservative or progressive — your only defense is knowing exactly what your students need. Not in general terms. In measurable goals.

What percentage of your third graders read at grade level? What’s your target for next year? For three years from now? How do you know if you’re making progress?

Boards that can answer those questions can evaluate every state mandate through a simple filter: Does this help us reach our student outcome goals? Boards that can’t answer them will be blown around by whatever the political winds bring.

2. Progress Monitoring — Build the Habit

The boards I’ve seen navigate political turbulence best are the ones that have a regular, disciplined process for reviewing progress toward their goals. Monthly data check-ins. Quarterly stocktakes. A governance calendar that protects board meeting time for discussing student outcomes, not just administrative business.

When you have that discipline in place, a superintendent change doesn’t derail you. A funding mandate doesn’t confuse you. A new statewide priority doesn’t distract you — because you already know what you’re measuring and why.

The Hard Truth

I work with boards all over the country. The ones that get crushed by political changes — whether from the left or the right — are the ones that don’t have their own governance foundation in place. They react to every new state directive, every advocacy group demand, every election cycle. They spend their meetings arguing about what to argue about.

The ones that survive and thrive — the ones that keep improving student outcomes through every political shift — are the ones with clear goals, a disciplined monitoring process, and a governance team that operates like an actual team instead of a collection of individual politicians.

That’s within your control. Right now. Before November.

You don’t know who’s going to win. But you know what your students need. Start there. Stay there. And you’ll be fine regardless of what Sacramento sends your way.

This is the second piece in our California Superintendent Race content series. Read the first: “California Just Picked Two School Board Presidents to Run Its Schools. Neither Is Ready.”

If your board wants to get clear on its goals and build a monitoring process that weathers any political change, we can help. Email me: aj@effectiveschoolboards.com