Flores Aguilar has held many civic leadership positions what she called in a recent interview, “a professional lifetime of focusing on children and their families.”
    Recently, she was endorsed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for the school board seat and is supported by many Latino leaders in District 5 where 93% of the students are Hispanic, according to an LAUSD Local District profile.
    Recently, she met with parents of the upstart Silver Lake chapter of the Los Angeles Parents Union along with Steve Barr, head of Green Dot Charter Schools. The Parents Union is hoping to use Greed Dot as a model for more charter schools in the area.
   “My interest is to connect at a very local level and together try to identify solutions with me being the voice for that at the board level,” she said.
Flores Aguilar is critical of bureaucracy in the school district that she said she fears has become insular and polarized.
    She said she will work to undo the “cookie cutter approach” to education and allow more flexibility in the classroom.
Partnering with parents and city and community leaders including the mayor, whom she admires for challenging the status quo, makes sense, said Flores Aguilar.
   “Many [people] have ways and access to information and to people to help us achieve the results that we want,” she said.
    Flores Aguilar, a first generation Mexican-American went to Huntington Park High School and is a graduate of the University of Redlands. She also received a master’s degree in social welfare from UCLA and lives in Highland Park with her husband Sal.