When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, Joshua Christ was faced with many of his theater students turning to him for comfort in his first year of teaching at Mt. SAC.

Christ described theater as a place that collects the “outsiders of society” like neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ students who are demonized by Trump and his allies. His election as President scared these students.

“The entire day after the election was spent counseling students […]” Christ, a technical theater professor, said. “I wasn’t trained to do that, I was trained to build things, man.”

“That moment kicked off me being an advocate,” he added. “That was me really understanding the privilege I have and the voice that I have. When I walk into a room, people listen because of who I am and what I look like. I need to use my voice to make sure that the voices that are not allowed in the room can be present in the room.”

Along with being a Technical Theater professor that teaches set-building, stage lighting and a myriad of other backstage workings, Christ is also the Vice President of Mt. SAC’s Faculty Association.

He led multiple rallies in summer 2024 to fight for a Cost-of-Living Adjustment for professors that resulted in faculty receiving the full amount of California-allocated raises to professors at Mt. SAC.

Now, Christ is running for Fontana School Board, endorsed by the Fontana Teachers Association, Teamsters Local 1932, Stop Moms for Liberty, along with other organizations and local leaders.

He describes himself as a young progressive advocate that will represent Fontana teachers, fight against Moms for Liberty’s regressive outing policies and protect school district land from industry.

More than anything, Christ found east Fontana as his and his wife’s home because it felt right culturally for his future kids. “We believe we could raise our children, who are going to be white children from a fairly affluent household, and they will understand exactly what we believe by meeting people of different world views in a diverse community,” he said.

But after moving to east Fontana, he realized that the people running the city he called home were putting profit over people.

“This warehouse will generate this much income for the city and generate partnerships with Amazon and Walmart,” Christ said sarcastically, imitating Fontana politicians. “It doesn’t matter that we are poisoning our community by the amount of smog in the air and that we are putting our children at risk by putting a warehouse directly across from a school.”

A Fontana politician is Christ’s opponent in the Fontana Unified School District Board Area 4 race – Danielle Holley. She is currently the Executive Director for Fontana’s Chamber of Commerce and Christ doesn’t believe his opponent will have Fontana residents in mind if elected.

“[Holley] has a lot of business connections and is very connected to our mayor — who has been pushing the warehouses and pushing the ‘business first, citizen second’ agenda,” he said. “This has been detrimental to the community of Area 4.”

The current FUSD Board member for Area 4 is Dr. Jennifer Quezada who Christ said he really respects for her leading voice on implementing ethnic studies courses in the school curriculum. But with FUSD transitioning to an area-based election system, Quezada will remain an at-large member while seat 4 goes up into election — Union leader Joshua Christ versus Fontana Politician Danielle Holley

“I think I have great ideas; I also have nowhere near the money my opponent has,” Christ added. “I’m endorsed by the Fontana Teachers Association. The teachers say this is a teacher. He knows what we need. He knows what students need. He’s with students every day.”

This school board election is particularly important to Area 4 as over the next four years, Christ said that school district land may be sold to businesses which is why he decided to run.

“It’s now or never, because once this becomes a warehouse, it’s never not going to be a warehouse.”

Another compounding problem he described was Mom’s of Liberty in Fontana. This political organization is a national right-wing group that advocates against LGBTQ rights and critical race theory in school curricula.

One of Mom’s of Liberty’s many regressive policies Christ explained is their “parent’s rights,” or more commonly known as forced outings.

“In general terms, it is a parent’s right to know everything that goes on in the students’ classroom,” he said. “It is used as a conservative moniker for outing neurodivergent and LGBTQ students if they confide in a teacher or a principal.”

“[Forced outings] would force that teacher or principal to tell the parents, and that instantly puts many of those children into an unsafe situation at home,” Christ added. “There’s reams of data that show that the students that are coming out to their teachers first do so because they don’t feel safe at home. As soon as their home life figures out, they’re projected life expectancy is one to three years. So I’m running against that.”

Forced outings have been banned in California since Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1955 this year, but Christ said the courts may overturn them. “All it takes is non-participation in our governmental processes to take a law that is out there to protect children and overturn it […],” he added.

During Christ’s campaign, he has been knocking on doors for residents to get to know him as a candidate. Some residents cut straight to the point with Christ, “You’re gonna support that woke shit?” This is one of the questions Christ was asked while talking to residents.

As someone who is a progressive that fights for both social justice as well as diversity, equity and inclusion, Christ said he can’t say “yes” because the resident would slam the door on him and vote for his opponent.

Instead, Christ explains the following.

“Students that look like me should read stories and see themselves and see people that look like me in it and students that look like my Chicano neighbors should read stories and see themselves in it,” Christ said to the Fontana resident. “We should reach each other’s stories […] because if I can understand the perspective that they’re coming from, then they can understand the perspective that I’m coming from.”

Christ said that the resident responded, “Oh, that makes sense.”

“I support diversity and inclusion to understand our neighbors’ perspectives because we need to be one community,” Christ added. “That has seemed to resonate, which is awesome, but it is truly what I believe; We need to understand where everyone else has formed their worldviews because […] often, we lose ourselves in being in the same 25-mile radius we were born.”

Fontana Area 4 will be voting this election for a new school board member. Union Leader and professor Joshua Christ makes his case.

“Fontana voters have a choice to make,” Christ said. “[They] have the opportunity to fundamentally change their school board in a way that will support students, in a way that will put students first and in a way where student perspectives are heard, valued and centralized in the decisions that are being made about the community.”