Board Member,
LAUSD District 6
Why I Serve
Dear Neighbor,
Every child in our community deserves an excellent public education. Fighting to make this promise a reality has been my life’s work. As your School Board Member, I’ve worked to ensure the East San Fernando Valley gets its fair share, expanding AP classes, dual enrollment opportunities and career pathways for our students, and I’ve spent countless hours visiting schools, meeting with principals, and working side by side with educators, parents, and students to solve our toughest challenges.
But today, our progress faces unprecedented threats. With Donald Trump back in the White House, immigrant families in our neighborhoods are living in fear of ICE raids. Federal funds for after-school programs, bilingual education, and school meals for low-income students are threatened. Politicians in Washington are determined to strip away resources from communities like ours simply because we fight for equity, dignity, and opportunity for every child.
Here in the East Valley, we know what it means to fight and win for our kids. Together, we’ve reached record-high graduation rates, expanded universal preschool for every four-year-old, created safer routes to school through Safe Passages programs, and launched more than 150 school greening projects to create cooler, healthier playgrounds for our kids. We’ve strengthened literacy instruction, deepened support for multilingual learners and newcomer students, and made ethnic studies a graduation requirement so every student sees their history and culture reflected in the classroom.
Yet, the work isn’t done. I will continue fighting to protect our schools from attacks, to expand opportunities for every child no matter their zip code, language, or immigration status, and to ensure our classrooms are places of joy, belonging, and safety.
Our public schools are the foundation of our community. I would be honored to earn your support and continue this fight for our students and families. Together, we can defend our progress and continue to build the schools our children deserve.
In solidarity,
“We need a leader who has a record of working with the community to find solutions that support students and teachers and a leader who can address the toughest problems in the years ahead. I've worked with Kelly to help our youth, support our teachers and fund our schools, and I am proud to endorse her for the Los Angeles Unified School Board."
— Mayor Eric Garcetti
About Kelly
Kelly Gonez proudly represents Board District 6 on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, serving the East San Fernando Valley. First elected in 2017, she went on to serve as Board President from 2020 to 2023, becoming the youngest woman and Latina ever to hold that role.
As your School Board Member, Kelly has steered efforts to expand opportunity and equity across LAUSD. She led the successful effort to provide universal preschool in Los Angeles, making LAUSD the first district in California to expand transitional kindergarten for all four-year-olds, and championed the requirement for ethnic studies as a graduation standard. She has fought for students experiencing homelessness, foster youth, immigrant families, multilingual learners, LGBTQ youth, and students with disabilities, while also securing more than $1.2 billion for green schoolyards to bring outdoor learning, shade, and play spaces to campuses across the District.
A native Angeleno and the daughter of an immigrant, Kelly was the first in her family to graduate college. At UC Berkeley, she worked more than 50 hours a week across three jobs to pay her way through school and support her family. After college, she returned home to teach math and science in the Northeast San Fernando Valley, where she saw firsthand the challenges students face and the life-changing impact of strong public schools.
Her passion for equity led her to national service as an education policy advisor in President Obama’s administration, where she advanced initiatives for English learners, unhoused students, foster youth, and immigrant children.
Today, Kelly continues that fight on the School Board while raising her three young children, two of whom attend LAUSD schools. She and her family live in North Hollywood.