Samantha Bengtson/Gonzales Tribune
Araceli Flores answers questions from the School Board before being selected as its new member.
GONZALES — Araceli Flores has joined the Gonzales Unified School District Board on April 16 as the newest board trustee.
“The job of the board is to really govern and to make sure that the district is doing what it’s supposed to in the best interest of the schools, students and everyone involved,” Flores said.
Flores was selected as a board trustee after the departure of Elizabeth Funk in February. The position of board trustee was applied for by Flores and Juan “John” Martinez.
Each candidate was asked nine questions originally.
“I’ve been coming to the board meetings since last summer and my main motivation is my kids,” said Flores. “Because my kids are my motivation, the kids of this district are also my motivation and the community.”
Flores is an alumna of the Gonzales Unified School District and believes in bringing what she has learned in life back to her community. Flores wants her children to have the best possible education and in turn give the Gonzales youth the same.
“My strengths are that I am pretty driven,” said Flores. “I have a lot of experience with systems. I know how to look at two sides of everything.”
Flores said she thinks the district and community are going to go through a lot of healing in the upcoming months with the release of teachers at the end of the school year.
Martinez made the decision to run for school board trustee because he wanted to offer his resources and talk about programs that he thought would be an asset to the Gonzales community. Martinez served for 12 years on the Hartnell College Board.
“We had a lot of the same challenges,” said Martinez. “I had hopes that my experience of 12 years at Hartnell would somehow help and also my concern for having high school students transfer into college.”
After both candidates had answered the nine questions, the board deliberated and were deadlocked after the first vote. Then Fabiola Moreno of the Youth Council started off the next round of questions, which led to two council members deciding to support their fellow members and select Flores as the next board member.
Flores’ first Gonzales Unified School District meeting as a board member was April 23.
