James Bishop wants to partner, involve, inform parents | Chico Unified School Board Trustee Area 2

Chico Unified School District candidate James Bishop seeks to represent parents for the district he grew up in.

Bishop attended Sierra View Elementary and Bidwell Junior High, and while in high school at Pleasant Valley High, he met his wife Kelli. They married in 1989, and together they share eight children.

Bishop

He studied at UC San Diego and Chico State, worked in the biochemistry and software industries, and returned to Chico to in 2016 to work, teach college classrooms and homeschool his children through Camptonville Academy.

“I was really attracted to education,” Bishop said, adding his evident passion for teaching and mentoring kids.

By summer 2020 in the midst of COVID-19 lockdowns, James said he saw students failing and politicization increase, and he became active with parents who influenced him to run for CORE Butte Charter board, on which he currently is serving his second term.

The big issue

Bishop is running on a platform supporting parents’ rights with a focus on academics, supporting teachers and an opposition to Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs.

He takes a position that schools should “seek to partner with (parents) and to involve and inform them at every opportunity,” and opposes Assembly Bill 1955, a proposed law to develop resources to support LGBTQ pupils and families.

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Bishop attended CUSD board meetings in 2023, when parents advocated to change a policy that required school staff to facilitate a student’s social gender transition, and to keep confidentiality if requested by the student. He takes the position that disclosing information to everyone but the parent is indefensible and is against any “Parental Secrecy Policy” for children under 12, and for children older than 12, parents “need to be first in line if information is going to be shared broadly.”

Bishop seeks to channel resources toward teachers and “away from administration and bureaucracy,” and holds a position that schools should focus on traditional academics in the classroom and celebrate success.

He said he supports the Measure C bond, and said he thinks conversation about facility maintenance should be reframed into doing things differently going forward.