Danielle Gonzales

Danielle Gonzales
District 3
Board President

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Video Introduction

Board Role

APS Board Member: 2022-present
Term Ends: Dec. 31, 2025
Officer/Chair:

Board President: 2024
Policy Committee Chair: 2022 and 2023

Biography

Danielle Gonzales was born in Farmington, New Mexico, and moved to Albuquerque at the age of five. She is a proud product of APS (Cochiti and Chaparral elementary schools, John Adams Middle School, and Valley High School). After college in Washington, D.C., she earned a master's degree in education from the University of Notre Dame and began her career as a fourth-grade teacher in Brownsville, Texas.

Gonzales now lives in the North Valley with her husband Tim, her three children, and her niece, all of whom attend APS charter schools.

Gonzales has dedicated her career to improving education in the United States with a focus on students of color. She wants to prioritize listening to those stakeholders who are closest to the issues: students, families, and educators, and recognize the assets and strengths that are brought by students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, LGBTQ students, English learners, and students with learning disabilities and differences. Her goal is to lift up and celebrate the district's success and not shy away from the challenges or the hard debates.

Gonzales wishes to bring examples of lessons learned and promising practices from other districts and education improvement efforts from across the state and across the country home to APS.

In addition to her master's degree from Notre Dame, Gonzales has a bachelor's degree in political science and Spanish language and literature from George Washington University.

In Her Own Words

“Community schools are an innovative solution to improve school effectiveness and enhance the lives of communities and families. Our public schools are our greatest resource and should serve as hubs for our entire community. We need an intentional and focused district-wide strategy that reimagines and supports our schools to enable mutually beneficial relationships with families, neighborhood residents, businesses, and organizations to collectively improve the well-being of our students.” – 2021

“We need instructional guidance and coaching and common curriculum to ensure every student has access to grade-level content. As educators demonstrate skills, competencies, and effectiveness, they ought to have more freedom.” – 2021

“Our society overall is at an inflection point, and there is an opportunity to change the way we do schooling to align more to research on child development, to focus more on equity and agency, and to foster greater belonging and mobility. Children and families don't experience issues in siloes though. There is a direct relationship between increased opportunity in life and access to safe and affordable housing, to reliable and high-quality child care, to paid leave and living wages, to reliable healthcare and nutritious food, and to family planning and reproductive health care and choice, and more. I am passionate about ensuring multiple public policy issues are addressed and funded so all can have the resources and services they need to succeed.” – 2021

Organizations Present and Past

Treasurer for the New Mexico Bataan Corregidor Memorial Foundation
Albuquerque Women's Giving Circle
Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation
Education Leaders of Color
Latinos for Education
MomsRising
Moms Demand Action
Executive Director, New Mexico First
Chair of the Board, Transforming Education
Advisory Board, National P-3 Center

Possible Conflicts of Interest

President Gonzales works for One Generation Fund, which provides support to Indian Education. She also has an independent contract with the New Mexico Public Education Department to train and support the department and local education agencies on equity.