Anderson Union High School Board Member Resigns Seat
REDDING, Calif. — Jackie LaBarbera did what Anderson families elected her to do. Sacramento and the statewide teachers' union have spent four years trying to make her pay for it. LaBarbera was elected to the Anderson Union High School District Board in 2022; then, in 2024, she was elected to the County Office of Education Board as the top vote-getter for SCOE Area 2, but she continued serving on the Anderson Board.
In a statement this week, LaBarbera listed the work completed on the Anderson Union High School District board: a parental notification policy so families would know when their children requested social, emotional, or medical interventions at school; restoration of the Pledge of Allegiance and classroom flags limited to the United States and California; refusal to abandon parental rights after the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1955; equal protections for all protected classes; annual mailed parent opt-out notices; new construction trades and heavy equipment classes; and board oversight instead of rubber-stamping programs and grants.
That record is not a secret. After AUHSD adopted its parental notification policy in 2023, Attorney General Rob Bonta publicly denounced the district. California Teachers Association (CTA) representatives later alleged at a State Assembly hearing on AB 1955 that the Anderson board was harassing and disparaging minors, a claim that LaBarbera claims is false. The same Attorney General’s Office later granted leave to sue LaBarbera twice over dual-office claims. The second effort, she said, is being funded and lawyered by the statewide teachers union.
The rule on dual officeholding is Government Code Section 1099. Critics argued that LaBarbera’s 2024 election to the Shasta County Board of Education made her Anderson seat incompatible and that she forfeited it by taking the county office. Also, LaBarbera was appointed to the Cascade Union Elementary School District board in March/April 2026. SCOE Board President Michael Orlicky named her to a temporary seat after three of five CUESD trustees resigned the prior week, leaving the board without a quorum. Orlicky moved quickly so the board could function until the district appointed replacements. In June 2026, Attorney General Rob Bonta granted Anderson resident Jeffrey Carr leave to sue LaBarbera in quo warranto. That grant was not a finding that she had broken the law; it only let a court decide the incompatibility question. A later challenge authorized by the same office was brought by Anderson Union teacher Tamara Pellow, who is president of the district's branch of the CTA. LaBarbera says the statewide teachers union is funding and handling the second effort. After that second grant, on September 23 she resigned the Anderson seat — which was due to expire Nov. 19 — rather than extend what she calls a witch hunt. She remains on the county board.
“If I believed this case would be decided on the merits alone, I would welcome a trial. I do not,” she wrote. “Participating would only extend the witch hunt. It would not produce anything positive for the students and families I serve.”
AB 1955, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2024, bars school districts from requiring staff to tell parents when a child asks to be treated as a different sex at school. Anderson joined litigation against that law. A federal judge in San Diego later held that parents have a constitutional right to be informed when a child expresses gender incongruence at school and that teachers may not be forbidden from telling them — a ruling the U.S. Supreme Court partially restored in 2026 even as Sacramento continued to fight it.
CTA’s interest is not subtle. The union issued a cease-and-desist letter in March 2025 after LaBarbera voted, as an Anderson trustee, to end a "Community Schools" contract with the county office. Community Schools is a program that offers medical, behavioral, and wellness clinics on school campuses and may treat students without parental knowledge or consent. (Shasta Unfiltered reported on this topic in a prior article and is linked here.) Union officials called LaBarbera's dual service an “inherent conflict.” Perhaps the conflict they cannot tolerate is a board that puts parents' rights ahead of the bureaucracy.
LaBarbera thanked the Anderson community that made the work possible and said she will keep serving all students from her county seat. LaBarbera has drawn praise from parents who credit her with consistently defending parental rights in local schools, even as teachers'-union and state-level officials have opposed her efforts.
To learn more about the Community Schools Program, click on the link below:
