Josefina Dominguez
From Ballotpedia
This page was last updated during the official's most recent election or appointment. Please contact us with any updates.
Tenure
2022 - Present
Term ends
2025
Years in position
3
Predecessor
Josefina Dominguez is a member of the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education in New Mexico, representing District 6. She assumed office on January 1, 2022. Her current term ends on December 31, 2025.
Dominguez ran for election to the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education to represent District 6 in New Mexico. She won in the general election on November 2, 2021.
Dominguez completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Josefina Dominguez was born in Tucson, Arizona. Dominguez's professional experience includes working as a public school teacher and writing facilitator at New Mexico State University. She earned a bachelor's degree from Colorado College in 1981 and a graduate degree from New Mexico State University in 2009.[1]
Dominguez has been affiliated with the League of Women Voters of Central New Mexico and Democratic Party of Bernalillo County.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: Albuquerque Public Schools, New Mexico, elections (2021)
General election
General election for Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education District 6
Josefina Dominguez defeated Arthur Carrasco and Celia Cortez in the general election for Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education District 6 on November 2, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Josefina Dominguez (Nonpartisan)  | 55.8 | 11,265 |
 | Arthur Carrasco (Nonpartisan) | 42.9 | 8,672 | |
| Celia Cortez (Nonpartisan) (Write-in) | 1.3 | 257 | ||
| Total votes: 20,194 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Crystal Franco (Nonpartisan)
Endorsements
To view Dominguez's endorsements in the 2021 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Josefina Dominguez completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Dominguez's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am the daughter of a Mexican immigrant mother who came to this country to embrace the hope public schools provide. With the help of a few teachers and counselors who encouraged me to apply to colleges, I attended and graduated from Colorado College. It was there that I developed a vision of the quality of education I wanted for my children and students, no matter their career or college choice. As an English and Spanish secondary education teacher, I committed 28 years to the classroom. As a retired teacher, I am stepping up to ensure that public schools are strengthened as a necessary safety net for our citizenry, especially the most vulnerable. I want to ensure our democracy thrives rather than survives.
- Honor and Reward All Essential Workers on School Campuses
- Promote Equity, Access, and Inclusion in Learning Environments
- Oversee Responsible and Transparent Budgeting
Equity must be the standard in the classroom, at the school site, and at all levels of administration. School systems must hire people of color with the historical memory and experience that informs their day to day decisions regarding the most vulnerable students and families. Curriculum cannot reflect minority people until school systems hire staff that reflect a race, gender, and class perspective. Budgets must reflect this commitment.
Toni Morrison is one person I admire as a writer, intellectual, and activist. The breadth and depth of her intellect continues to inspire me. The power of her language, and her appreciation for that power immediately spoke to my sensibilities as an English as a Second Language student. She was my inspiration for staying at Colorado College to finish my studies. The college invited her as a guest speaker and her appearance at Colorado College was timely. I had never heard a person of color, much less a woman of color in a position of honor, speak so powerfully. She made me feel like I had a mission in life; like I had the right to be where I was at that moment. She verified that no hardship or challenge should get in the way of my right to be there and to pursue my vision for a more equitable public school system.
I suggestions in each category: the films Babe, Matewan, and Sweet Land: A Love Story; Toni Morrison's essay and acceptance speech for her Nobel Prize in Literature; David Halberstam's book The Children.
Above all, elected officials must be ethical, honest, and trustworthy. We are stewards of the public trust and must be responsive and respectful of that trust in all manner of speech and action.
I strive to be understanding, kind, and respectful, especially of our elders' wisdom and especially of the wisdom that comes from suffering no matter the age. I am a student of the written and spoken word and appreciate the power that language has to enact or hamper change. I believe that the struggle that Sojourner Truth was engaged in is still our struggle today. I will stay the course and draw on her courage and example to accomplish good in my community.
School board members are expected to represent their constituents, especially the most vulnerable and the voiceless. They must weigh the needs of the majority with the needs of the minority in an equitable way. How they set policy and enforce it is one measure of the primary job. How they evaluate the Superintendent is another. Finally, if budgets are a statement of values, then how school board members oversee that budget is most definitely a measure of their loyalty to constituents and their needs.
If my children and grandchildren are any measure of my work on this earth, I believe I have left my legacy: a commitment to being a good steward of the outdoors and a commitment to all the hope for a stronger Democracy that the Public Schools offer.
The most personally significant historical event was the Kent State massacre of students. That tragedy is forever seared in my young 12 year old memory. My step-father was angry at the students and wanted them deported to Russia. Mom was furious at the National Guard and my step-father. It was the first time I saw her stand up to Dad and challenge his perspective. To Mom, those students were the children of many mothers who had invested love and guidance in their upbringing. The values and convictions that had prompted the students to protest the Vietnam War were admirable, in Mom's eyes. Their democratic rights had been unjustly violated by a government that had abused its power. And she was not about to accept any justification for their murders.
I was 14 years old when I applied for a summer program through ManPower in Tucson, Arizona. I chose to get a job as a tutor rather than attend a music summer camp in Silver City, NM. This choice was not really a choice: Mom was raising 3 of us as a widow on a Head Start cook's wages. Our situation was desperate and I knew that I had to step up and help.
School board members are the advocates for students and their families, especially the most vulnerable. In that regard, our work to set policy, to oversee the budget, and to hire and evaluate the superintendent must be governed by the needs of our children and their families, and by extension the needs of our community at large.
Eighty-one percent of Albuquerque Public Schools is made up of Title I schools. We are a community where most children rely on free school lunches, and so much more. We are also a majority minority school district with a history of underserving that population, even as the district has taken monies to specifically address minority children's needs. Though District 6 is also comprised of affluent families, a 2020 survey for the search for superintendent reveals that even these families recognize that poverty and lack of access impacts and limits the community as a whole. We are need of expanding the model of Community Schools with wrap around services: social services, medical, and behavioral health services. We also must increase salaries and wages for teachers and school personnel to attract and retain the talented staff necessary to lift our students out of poverty and help them thrive in rich and innovative learning environments.
To begin with, I will advocate for recruiting and retaining talented teachers and school site personnel by increasing salaries and wages. I will advocate for hiring more minority teachers in the core subject areas and by questioning the over-represented numbers of minority and poor children in Special Education programs. Furthermore, all teachers but especially minority teachers must understand or represent the historical memory and experiences of the children they teach and the families that inform that child's school experience. The same must be true for all administrators and support staff. Only then, can we ensure that schools' social programs and curriculum will better serve the needs of our children.
In New Mexico, we are facing a lawsuit challenging the poor outcomes indigenous and Hispanic children have faced, despite much federal and state monies to address their needs. The Yazzie/Martinez Lawsuit is a clarion call for much needed change. I will reach out to the constituents and the organizations representing the plaintiffs. Their guidance will be necessary in crafting equitable solutions both locally and statewide. Additionally, I am working with the local Volunteer Chapter Leader of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense to address the rising threat of violence on our campuses. Equality NM is another organizations I will rely on as the school board reaches out to other vulnerable populations, i.e. the LGBTQ community, to include them as we move forward.
I most certainly believe that enforcing a policy that ensures diversifying key areas of our faculty, staff, and administration is in order. That is exactly my perspective and intent. I will work with a policy analyst to improve the language of the current policy, but more importantly to see its execution. The premise is that the district has failed to diversify its staff appropriately to allow access to the most vulnerable. And the Yazzie/Martinez lawsuit is an indication of a failed staffing and instructional policy.
Policies that interfere with learning and unduly burden school site administrators, support staff, and teachers are at the heart of a recent exodus of classroom teachers and support staff. Budget cuts have also principally affected school sites and building repairs. Also, the school district's failure to devote appropriate resources to school sites further exacerbates our achievement problems. Moreover, inadequate salaries and wages fail to attract and retain talented professionals. The combination of poor support, waning resources, and inadequate compensation has led to a school teacher and personnel shortage that will soon paralyze our school system. One solution to this problem begins with the budget and requires a two prong approach: stanch the fees, penalties, and lawsuit awards that waste precious little resources; unite in lobbying the state legislature to fully fund the state equalization formula. New Mexico provides ninety percent of school budgets statewide. And while ten percent must be managed efficiently and responsibly, the bulk of our monies come from the state. Legislators hold the key to the major improvements necessary to improve the quality of education in New Mexico.
Good teaching begins with a diversity in staffing in core subjects other than Special Education which has become a place for children experiencing poverty, momentary trauma, and immigrants. Good teaching includes quality and relevant professional development dictated by teachers and administrators at the school site and that is data driven. Good teaching includes an understanding of the socio-economic, ethnic, and gender needs of the school site. A high quality curriculum includes purpose driven, innovative approaches to reaching our children: paid internships and apprenticeships in partnership with the trades, the local health industry, the local colleges and universities, and local grassroots organizations. Dovetail capstone projects with high quality and equitable standardized tests to better measure students' abilities without the stigma of "failure." These approaches will motivate students to learn their basic skills and achieve at a higher level, especially if there is an economic benefit to them in the immediate and long-term future.
A high quality curriculum includes purpose driven, innovative approaches to reaching our children: paid internships and apprenticeships in partnership with the trades, the local health industry, the local colleges and universities, and local grassroots organizations. Dovetail capstone projects with high quality and equitable standardized tests to better measure students' abilities without the stigma of "failure." These approaches will motivate students to learn their basic skills and achieve at a higher level, especially if there is an economic benefit to them in the immediate and long-term future.
In New Mexico, schools statewide are funded 90% of their budgets via the State budget. I believe the District's lobbyist along with the Superintendent, the Board of Education, and ideally parents should join efforts to champion our causes to the legislative branch. Finding the resources to fully fund NM schools means re-evaluating how oil and gas corporations are taxed. That alone is a big challenge. But before we can begin to take on that State challenge, we have local challenges. The first step must be addressing the relationship between the district and the local community. This requires building trust among the very people the district has failed. This approach has the potential to be the most fruitful but the most difficult. The district leadership must take ownership of its faults in very specific ways, especially with regard to indigenous and Hispanic students and parents. The district must point to solutions for its local failures. Regardless, whether this coalition of interests happens or not, my commitment is to working with legislators to fund our equalization formula adequately.
One of my colleagues Uche Maria Ohiri characterizes public education as a human right. And she has articulated in that phrase the driving passion and conviction that motivated me to become a public school teacher. Thomas Jefferson captured some of these sentiments in his idea of the Common Schools, which included an appreciation for working the land and having a mastery of the practical arts even while developing the intellect in history, art, science, math, and languages. Jefferson gave voice to the importance of a liberal arts approach to a lifetime of learning. I understand that his vision did not include people like me and Ohiri at the time of his writings. Still, the principle is woven into the very fabric of our Democracy. And I agree with Ohiri that we expand that vision of public schools as a human right.
I applaud our district's establishing the beginning prototypes of the Community School model. I believe we have 51 Community Schools total, 6 of them in District 6 at various stages of development but none fully operational. I pledge to advocate for fully funding medical, mental health, and social services at these schools. NM State Senator & Dr Martin Hickey has pledged to help with this endeavor, and I look forward to working with him and other legislators to work toward fully funding the community school model. But my vision for this model goes farther. Our problems are too big to expect Albuquerque Public Schools to handle them all. Community schools can also be community centers for civic & civil engagement. We have community organizations that have an effective model for identifying and developing leaders among families. We need families to be engaged in creating the well being of their community and schools. Currently, we see these services as targeting students and families. But the question recognizes the need for faculty and staff. For this demographic, I would argue that a better negotiated benefits package is in order.
Success and student achievement require more technological skills than ever before. But students must develop critical thinking and writing skills to use technology wisely. Combining STEM and the Humanities is the right path. Albuquerque Public Schools has already invested in WiFi connections to schools and provided laptops to students. It is important to expand these improvements equitably and to train our dedicated teachers. Free WiFi to families in need also remains a significant challenge.
The pandemic highlighted the importance of technology during remote learning. However, the pandemic also highlighted the inequities built into our current technology. As a society, at the federal level, internet services must be included in legislation as necessary as everyday utilities. The tech support for families also highlighted the inequalities in our district, a majority minority population. Out of 30 plus employees in the technology department responsible for interacting with students and parents, only 3 or 4 are bilingual AND fluent. Enough said. We have a long road of challenges ahead of us and this all goes back to enforcing policies to diversify our staffing to reflect the experiences and demographics of our constituents. This is the foundation of schooling during a pandemic. We cannot begin to address professional development and innovative learning without the basics.
I plan on working through the traditional avenues that the schools' Parent Teacher Organizations and Parent Teacher Associations offer. However, I plan to reach out in a non-traditional manner to reach parents whose voices have not been heard but whose children have been the most marginalized. Local organizations who work with immigrant groups are vital. These include Catholic Social Services and other active church organizations. I will also consider working with Albuquerque Interfaith and the Industrial Areas Foundation. They have a model that has worked in other states and I hope we can replicate successes here. As a teacher who organized the families of English as a Second Language students, I know what works: knocking on doors and building relationships slowly but surely. I will also try to organize phone town halls and zoom meetings and devise a newsletter to post on various social media platforms, including NextDoor.
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See also
2021 Elections
External links
Footnotes
