ROXANE PALESTINO
Candidate for San Ysidro School District Governing Board
Students First. Employees Respected. Parents Heard.
Meet Roxane Palestino
Leadership That Shows Up
I am running for the San Ysidro School District Governing Board because I believe real change happens when people are willing to step forward, ask the hard questions, and hold leadership accountable.
For years, I have advocated from the other side of the dais—as a parent, special education advocate, community leader, and active participant in our schools. I have attended Board meetings, School Site Councils, parent committees, and district meetings. I have reviewed agendas, questioned spending, advocated for students, listened to employees, and stood beside families fighting to be heard.
I am not running for a title. I am running for systemic change.
The Change San Ysidro Deserves
Campaign Gallery
Why I'm Running
San Ysidro deserves leadership that puts students and the people serving them before politics and bureaucracy.
Â
Our teachers and classified employees are doing extraordinary work while too often being asked to do more with less. Our families deserve transparency. Our parents deserve a real voice. Our students deserve safe, fully staffed schools with the academic and special education support they need to succeed.
A trustee should not begin learning about the district after Election Day. I am already showing up. I am already doing the homework. I am already asking the questions.
And I am ready to serve.
My Priorities
Students Before Politics
Students Before Politics
Every decision made by the Board should begin with one question: How does this help our students? Our classrooms, academic achievement, special education services, student safety, and the employees directly supporting children must come before political agendas and unnecessary bureaucracy.
Strengthen Special Education
As a parent and special education advocate, I know how difficult it can be for families to navigate the system. Students with disabilities deserve services based on their individual needs—not simply what is easiest or least expensive. Families deserve communication, respect, transparency, and meaningful participation in decisions affecting their children. I will continue fighting for stronger special education services, adequate staffing, appropriate supports, and accountability.
Safe & Fully Staffed Schools
We cannot claim student safety is a priority while employees are stretched beyond reasonable limits. When one campus aide can be expected to supervise as many as 150 children, we need to ask: How is that safe? I will push for adequate staffing, reasonable workloads, properly supported classrooms, safe campuses, and the resources employees need to do their jobs effectively.
Give Parents Their Voice Back
Parents should never feel like outsiders in their own children's schools. Families deserve meaningful engagement, accessible information, language access, transparency, and opportunities to participate before major decisions are already made. Parent engagement should not be something the District talks about. It should be something families actually experience.
Accountability for Every Dollar
A school district budget represents its priorities. Before families and frontline employees are told there is no money, I want to know where the money is going. I will scrutinize spending on consultants, attorneys, outside contracts, and administrative costs and ask whether those dollars could be better invested directly into classrooms, staffing, student services, and academic achievement. Taxpayers deserve transparency. Employees deserve honesty. Students deserve results.
Respect Our Teachers & Classified Employees
Our classified employees keep our schools functioning every single day. They feed our children, maintain our campuses, support students with disabilities, supervise students, assist teachers, help families, work in our offices, provide transportation support, and keep our schools operating. They deserve respect, competitive compensation, adequate staffing, safe workloads, and a real voice in district decisions. I strongly support collective bargaining and meaningful employee representation in decisions affecting staffing, safety, budgets, facilities, working conditions, and student services.
Our children deserve better.
Our families deserve better.
Our teachers deserve support.
Our classified employees deserve respect.
San Ysidro deserves systemic change.
Paid for by RUIZ FOR SYSD 2026 - 1494012
SAN YSIDRO.
Paid for by RUIZ FOR SYSD 2026 - 1494012