The rightward drift of school boards across the United States in the wake of Donald Trump’s political ascendance is nothing new. As Mike Hixenbaugh observed in his 2024 book, They Came For The Schools:

Maybe you noticed the trend a few years ago when outraged parents started packing into suburban school board meetings, convinced that someone somewhere was trying to teach white kindergarteners that they should be ashamed of their skin color. Or when librarians began pulling picture books from shelves because they were afraid someone might see an illustration of two dads holding hands and call the police. Or when white nationalist extremeist groups pivoted from amplifying false claims about a stolen presidential election and started focusing on public school curriculum in places like Downers Grove, Illinois, and New Hanover County, North Carolina.

As of 2025, Beverly Hills, California is sadly on that list as well.

Three of the five members on the Beverly Hills Unified School District’s governing board — Judith Manouchehri, Sigalie Sabag, and Russell Stuart — have dedicated an outsized portion of the board’s business towards pursuing ideological aims most typically associated with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. They have done so irrespective of the toll it has taken on the reputation of our city, the credibility of the board, and the well-being of the students supposedly being served thereby.

Unfortunately, the nature of local politics makes it difficult for the public to easily understand just what is being done in their names and with their tax dollars. Critical decisions are buried in obscure filings and reached in prolix meetings buttressed by hours of soul-crushingly banal bureaucratic procedure. It’s both easy and understandable for people to tune out — and that’s what these board members count on.

BHUSD Watch seeks to change that.

By closely tracking what the school board is doing, providing the context necessary to understand its impact, and synthesizing this information into a digestable format, BHUSD Watch seeks to empower the residents of Beverly Hills to challenge and prevent the further MAGAfication of our schools. Every piece of reporting will be backed by cold hard receipts — documents, screen captures, video clips — that serve to substantiate the facts proffered and conclusions reached. Where opinions are given, they will be fully informed by the relevant evidence, and readers can decide for themselves if two plus two equals four.

The fact that this website needs to exist at all is an unfortunate reality.

But more frightening would be for our current reality to persist without BHUSD Watch.

We hope readers will join us in building a board worthy of retiring this domain.

Until then, our watch persists.