Running for HLPUSD

For over a year now, Gabriela Navar (fellow mom and HH resident) and I have worked endlessly to hold our school district (Hacienda La Puente Unified School District) accountable for their lack of transparency and communication with our communities. We co-founded a group called the #HLPMovement, a grassroots movement that is bringing together residents from both #HaciendaHeights and #LaPuente to inform and impower them to seek accountability of our Board Members, whom were voted to represent the interest of everyday people and not of the afluent.

Our movement has continued to grow and I cannot be more excited to see others taking the steps to become involved in local politics. We, the people, feel the greatest impact on the local level and therefore it’s important to not just be aware of what’s happening, but to be vocal when local representatives are failing the people.

And #HLPUSD had been failing us all: its employees, students and families, and its communities they were suppose to serve. Change is needed and in November 2020 we will get the chance to get it.

Through the efforts of the LP-based group Juntos Podemos, the election of School Board Members changed. Its at-large election system (i.e., all district voters vote for all Board seats) for electing HLPUSD Board members was illegally creating racially polarized voting. And so on Jan. 21, 2020, the HLPUSD converted to the by-trustee-area election system (i.e., voters within a defined trustee area vote for one Board candidate that lives in that trustee area) in time for the November 2020 election. This was a victory for both communities, ensuring Board representation in the areas that have long been underrepresented in the history of HLPUSD.

The current HLPUSD Board (minus Jeffrey De La Torre) have become out-of touch with its people. They have failed to answer to the calls of change and transparency. And so without a doubt, HLPUSD is in need of new leadership.

And so I am happy to announce my candidacy for the HLPUSD School Board, representing Trustee Area 3.

I want to thank my family and friends for giving me the support needed to make such a big decision. And I hope I can count on many of you for support and guidance.

I fully believe that holding public office should be an honor, its a responsibility to the public, and in this case, to the future of our children. Education should be equitable and accessible to all, and it shouldn’t matter who you are, or what social economic background you come from. Every single child deserves the same opportunity to great education.

I’m here for the people, not the politics. And its time for the HLPUSD Board to reflect on that responsibility.