What led you to become County Superintendent?

I have always had great respect for the work of county offices and admired the challenges of the role. As the liaison to the state, the entity that has fiscal oversight, and at the same time, the thought partner to districts in regard to curriculum, instruction, accountability, and everything in between, county offices are complex, key pieces to our public education system. I worked closely with county office team members while serving as a school site and district leader for many years. In fact, my former District Superintendent, Mr. Jorge Guzman used to tease me when I left the district office to attend meetings at the county office by saying, “Don’t let them recruit you to join the County Office team.” I think he knew before I did that with my collaborative leadership style, I had the desire to serve all students, not just those in our own district. The county office team and model is a perfect fit for me.
After serving as Monterey County’s Deputy Superintendent for almost six years, and with the announcement of my Superintendent’s retirement, I felt that fire in my belly telling me that it was time to take on this extremely important leadership role. It takes an entire community partnering together to ensure our students receive a high quality education, and a leader that can coalesce the diverse needs of the community. I am proud to be that leader for Monterey County.  

What inspired you to enter the field of education?

When I was 18-months-old, my mother moved my brother, sister, and I from Oklahoma City to Stratford, California to become a first grade teacher. We moved into on-campus teacher apartments where we lived next door to other educators and had the school playground as our backyard. From a very young age I used to line up all of my dolls and stuffed animals and read to them. When I was old enough to go to school, I would hang out in my mother’s classroom every day after school where I would play school and teach my invisible students. I have had a love for teaching and a passion for learning my entire life. I have always seen life as one big classroom where every day we learn a new lesson.

Do you have a particular goal that drives you?

I am committed to preparing our students for a diverse, innovative and highly technical world that demands creativity and productivity to thrive in our global society. Well-prepared students are able to accomplish their college and/or career goals. In order to accomplish this goal, I am focused on closing opportunity gaps that exist in our county. I want to ensure our youth have the opportunities that will help them achieve financial independence, and live healthy and happy lives. My husband and I have three adult children who are fully launched, living healthy and happy lives. We are thankful every day for the opportunities that were afforded them to help them get to where they are today. I am driven to work toward breaking down barriers, searching out resources, creating partnerships and doing whatever I can to make sure all students have opportunities available to them so that they too can be financially independent, healthy and happy in their chosen career and in life.

What objectives do you hope to achieve?

The first objective I hope to accomplish is to bring together all of our community partners who are interested in working on equity issues in our county and improving outcomes of our students. I would like to shift our partners from working collaboratively to a collective impact approach, which goes beyond working collaboratively to really pooling together our resources in a whole new way. We are leading the planning of our county’s first ever ALL IN FOR EQUITY Conference to be held March 2nd. We have several partner agencies and districts participating in the planning and pooling their resources. This is a very exciting development to see the synergy in the room. ALL IN FOR EQUITY will be the first of many training and learning opportunities to come on equity.

I also hope to achieve the expansion of high-quality early care and education in our county. I am thrilled that we will be partnering with a local childcare agency who will be renting one of our county office buildings to expand their program and also offer childcare at a discounted rate to our own county office employees. This is in addition to working with several other partner agencies on expansion work and growing our own Quality Matters QRIS program.

I will continue working toward recruiting and retaining top-notch teachers and staff who will build on our students’ cultural and linguistic assets. We recently received the Local Solutions Grant and the Teacher Residency Capacity Grant that will help us to continue to recruit as well as grow our own.

Lastly, I will be working toward empowering parents to become more engaged in their schools, continuing to focus on school safety, and will be working with one of our local hospitals to implement a major health initiative focused on reducing obesity rates of our young people by 20%.

What are your interests?

I love to travel both foreign and domestic and have traveled to all but seven states in the US. I love to read and learn new things. I love watching movies, wine tasting, and playing games with friends and family.

Who are the special people in your life?

The special people in my life include my husband, Jim Guss and our three children. Jim serves as the Executive Assistant to the Salinas City School District Superintendent. Mallorie, our oldest daughter, lives in Cape Coral, Florida and is a business tax specialist for the City of Ft. Meyers. Our son Christopher is an aerospace engineer and lives in San Diego. Our youngest daughter is Katelynn, and she is a scientific researcher and lives in Pacifica. We also enjoy spending time with our extended family and close friends.