With a wide grin and the microphone clutched in one hand,
newly-selected superintendent Deborah Flores announced to a
boardroom packed with district staff, teachers, parents and
students that she plans to spend the remaining seven to 10 years of
her career with the district.
Gilroy – With a wide grin and the microphone clutched in one hand, newly-selected superintendent Deborah Flores announced to a boardroom packed with district staff, teachers, parents and students that she plans to spend the remaining seven to 10 years of her career with the district.
The pledge came an hour after the Gilroy Unified School District board of trustees unanimously voted in a closed session Thursday night to make Flores the top employee at the district. An educator with seven years of experience as superintendent and more than 15 years in district administration, Flores heard the good news about an hour before a regular board meeting. She used this time to greet trustees, administrators and district staff then took a seat in the third row as the meeting began to await her introduction.
Trustee Javier Aguirre kicked off the congratulations to a standing-room only boardroom.
“Tonight is the start of a new beginning for our district,” he said. “Tonight the board hired Dr. Deborah Flores to lead our district.”
Flores had driven up from Arroyo Grande on California’s central coast – where she has served as Lucia Mar Unified School District superintendent for the past three years – to accept the position. She took the boardroom podium to a standing ovation from trustees.
“I feel very honored to be selected and look forward to my first day on the job,” said Flores, a tall woman with a distance-runner’s build who sported short brown hair and a grey skirt suit. “Gilroy is a wonderful school district, a place I would like to be until the end of my career and possibly until my son graduates from high school.”
Flores’ son, Julian, is eight years old and finishing up the third grade in Lucia Mar.
Before Flores’ three years at Lucia Mar, the 54-year-old was superintendent of the Santa Barbara elementary and high school districts for four and a half years. Having also been part of the district staff for 10 years previous, Flores served a total of 14 years in the southern California city.
The rigorous hiring process Flores went through to be selected superintendent assures she and the board are a good fit, she said in her speech.
Board president Tom Bundros then gave her a gift – a book titled “Pieces of the Past: A Story about Gilroy” – and presented her with a contract, which she signed at the podium. Flores will earn $187,500 plus benefits, a raise over the $164,560 she made with Lucia Mar.
During her seven years as superintendent of other districts, Flores faced problems similar to those Gilroy will take on in the coming years. For example, she oversaw the building of an elementary school at Lucia Mar and redrew its school boundaries. Gilroy will start construction on a new high school this fall and will have to redraw high school boundaries by its opening in 2009.
In Santa Barbara, she helped spur drastic improvements from populations that traditionally score low on standardized tests, such as students of Hispanic descent or low socioeconomic classes. Of Gilroy’s 10,000 students, 68 percent are Latino and 51 percent receive lunch free or at a reduced price and both groups are not meeting state testing expectations.
“We hope she brings the successes she’s had elsewhere to this district,” said trustee Rhoda Bress.
The board picked Flores from among 39 applicants, who hailed from 10 states and included at least 18 superintendents and 13 district administrators. It selected her as the top choice May 3 and informed her the next day. During the following two weeks, the board ran background checks, conducted a reference check and visited Flores in Arroyo Grande.
“During the search process, I think there was a high level of anxiety that we were not going to find someone qualified,” said Michelle Nelson, president of the Gilroy Teachers Association and a member of the nine-person contingent that visited Flores in Arroyo Grande. “After I went on the site visit and spoke to the staff there, I was convinced that the board had made a good choice.”
Flores will replace Darrel Taylor, interim superintendent for the district, who took over in early March when Edwin Diaz. A Gilroy native, Diaz served six years as superintendent before leaving for the larger, higher-paying Pasadena Unified School District.
Flores’ contract with Lucia Mar stipulates she must give 60-days notice before leaving the district. As she plans to do this today, she will not be able start in her new position any sooner than July 18 unless her current board releases her, she said.
Meanwhile, she will use vacation days to travel to Gilroy and take care of important business, such as hiring two assistant superintendents. She begins her new duties today, interviewing candidates for a principal position.
However, she is hoping that the Lucia Mar board will allow her to leave early.
“Now that the decision is final, I’m ready to go,” she said. “There are a lot of things I need to address right away.”
