Danielle Gonzales

Danielle Gonzales
District 3

Policy Committee Chair
Board of Education, Term Expires: 2025

Phone: (505) 880-3729
Email: danielle.gonzales2@aps.edu 
(Please send all invitations to events to boarded@aps.edu.)

Video Introduction

Biography

• APS Board Member 2022-present
• BS Political Science and Spanish Language and Literature, George Washington University
• MA Education, University of Notre Dame

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 D.C she earned her Master’s in Education from the University of Notre Dame and began her career as a fourth grade teacher in Brownsville, Texas.  Danielle now lives in the North Valley with her husband Tim, her three children and her niece, all of whom attend APS charter schools.

Ms. Gonzales has dedicated her career to improving education in the U.S 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.  Ms. 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.

“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.” – DG 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.” – DG 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.” –DG 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