10 candidates seek 4 Canutillo ISD school board seats
October 1, 2024
Ten candidates are facing off in the Nov. 5 election for four of the seven at-large seats on the Canutillo Independent School District Board of Trustees.
The election comes as the district deals with an ongoing budget deficit while preparing to begin work on projects under the $379 million bond approved by voters in May to replace some of its aging facilities with new schools.
Canutillo ISD trustees are elected at-large and represent the entire district of 5,800 students. Voters can select up to four candidates when they cast their ballot. The four candidates with the most votes win and will serve a four-year, unpaid term.
Early voting runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1. Election Day is Nov. 5.
Trustees’ duties include adopting an annual budget, which now stands at $67.9 million, setting tax rates, and implementing policies and goals for the district to follow. Trustees are also tasked with hiring, firing and evaluating the superintendent.
The school board can also decide whether teachers and staff who have gone through the proper training can carry a firearm and serve as armed campus guards. The board may also have to decide whether the district adopts a K–5 reading and language arts curriculum being developed by the Texas Education Agency, an initiative which has gained controversy for including Bible teachings and comes with an incentive of up to $60 per student for districts who implement it.
The elected trustees will begin their term in November before the state’s 89th Legislative Session where lawmakers will decide whether to increase school funding and likely vote on a voucher program that would allow parents to pay for private school using state funds. The program has drawn criticism from Democrats and rural Republicans who say it will siphon money from public schools.
Throughout the session, school boards from across Texas will campaign for their legislative priorities on behalf of their districts.
Here’s a look at the 10 candidates on the Canutillo ISD ballot:
Armando “Mando” Rodriguez
Armando “Mando” Rodriguez is looking to be re-elected for a sixth consecutive term. He was first elected in 2005 and is the board’s president.
The Canutillo native said he wants to continue the “good work that we’ve done over the years” and thwart the efforts of a group of “right wing Christian conservatives” who aim to harm the district.
Rodriguez said he wants to create a pipeline of board members and advocates who are versed in public education and school finance, “so they could hold board members accountable if they’re out of line.”
“I would personally rather others take a leap, but it’s important for us to have people in office that are really caring about all students in our community,” Rodriguez said.
The trustee faced a call to resign after a group of area residents filed a petition in county court in May to have him removed from office over two arrests, in 2013 and 2021, for allegedly driving while intoxicated. The case remains open.
Texas government code allows for the removal of a school trustee for “intoxication on or off duty caused by drinking an alcoholic beverage” when a case is brought forth to the county or district attorney by petition.
El Paso County court records show his most recent charges were dismissed in August after completing a pre-trial diversion program. The 2013 charges were dropped.
“It was one of the darkest days of my life, but my intent and my passion for my community, outweigh any mishaps,” he said.
Rodriguez said he opposes arming teachers or school staff. He said he thinks the district should invest in new technology, continue working with local police, who serve as security guards, and focus on students’ social and emotional well being to help keep schools safe.
He said he opposes voucher programs that would use state funds to send students to private schools and opposes including religion in school curriculum.
“I am a practicing Catholic that believes strongly in my faith, but I think it’s important for that to stay out of the educational system,” he said.
Blanca Trout
Incumbent Blanca Trout cited her passion for serving the community as the main reason she decided to run for re-election.
Trout, 62, was first elected in 2016 and is seeking a third term on the school board.
The trustee said her top priorities include advocating for students with disabilities and overseeing the completion of the bond projects.
Just two weeks after the Canutillo ISD school board unanimously approved the highest tax rate possible without triggering an election, Trout in her interview with El Paso Matters said she would never vote for a tax increase. Adopting the voter-approval rate raised taxes by about $280 a year for the average valued home in the district.
“We adopted the tax rate because it is necessary, not because we want to harm our taxpayers or the owners of houses, because this is affecting me as well,” Trout said.
Trout was censured by the school board in 2022 after she was accused of knowingly violating school board policy and Texas election law when she drove a truck with banners bearing her name during a homecoming parade. She was running as the Republican candidate for Precinct 4 on the El Paso County Commissioners Court at the time. She lost to Sergio Coronado, who was also on the Canutillo ISD board at the time.
“I did it with the spirit of a board member, respecting all the politics,” she said.
Trout said she is in favor of arming teachers and school staff so long as they have training and is in favor of voucher programs.
“I’m pretty sure that we are going to be safeguarded as public schools and that we are still going to have our funding,” she said.
Trout said she is also in favor of allowing religion in school curriculum.
“If this is something that is going to help us emotionally, then definitely,” she said. “We need spiritual support as well. We’re human beings that are made of spirits, and we need to feed our spirit.”
Carolina Ortega
Carolina Ortega is a stay-at-home mom turned into an aspiring politician.
Ortega, 49, said she decided to run after noticing students weren’t doing as well as they should be after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I feel that there’s a lot of room for improvement for the school district. I’m concerned that because of the shortfall in money, they’re letting a lot of important programs go,” she said.
School safety is among Ortega’s top priorities. She wants to ensure there are armed guards at all campuses, focus on discipline for students who cause trouble or get in fights, and that the district has firewalls to prevent students from accessing inappropriate content online.
“I think that it all encompasses safety in the school,” Ortega said.
Ortega said she hopes to use her experience running a household budget to address the district’s deficit by prioritizing spending.
“The way I run my household is we do a zero-balance budget. You put the most important debt that’s owed on the top and you start subtracting,” Ortega said. “And then after that, you start doing all the wants, the things that we want, like sending the kids on a field trip.”
Ortega said she supports arming teachers and staff with the proper training and also is in favor of a voucher program.
“The more choice that parents have, the better,” Ortega said. “I think competition is always good. If we have the top-notch teachers here in Canutillo then we don’t have to worry about them sending them to another school or transferring them.”
David Fintell
David Fintell emphasized the importance of increasing enrollment to ensure Canutillo ISD’s future success as the area around the district continues to grow.
“We have to get the budget under control and we have to understand that the state may not help us out,” Fintell said. “Which means to increase revenue. So we’ve got to get our enrollment up, which is going to be a not so easy task.”
Fintell, 74, retired from teaching middle school social studies and working as curriculum coordinator at Canutillo ISD in 2014. Before becoming an educator, Fintell worked as a sales manager at the Popular, a local department store chain that closed in 1995, for 20 years.
The former teacher said the 2024 bond will help accommodate growth in the area by placing schools in developing neighborhoods, but thinks the district will need to do more to promote itself to high school and middle school students.
Fintell said the district has done a good job by hiring PROCEDEO, a construction management firm, to oversee the bond, but will still need to put in effort to keep the community informed.
“It’s critical that the district be transparent in all of its workings,” Fintell said.
Fintell said he was conflicted on whether he would want school employees to carry a firearm, particularly those with military and law enforcement backgrounds, but ultimately said he opposed it.
He said he would only be in favor of vouchers if private schools were required to offer the same resources as public schools, such as transportation and accommodations for students with disabilities.
Fintell said he would like to know more about the TEA’s curriculum and if it teaches about religion in a historical context before deciding if he would support it.
“It could be controversial. It may not be. A lot of things just require common sense,” Fintell said.
James “Jimmy” Loftis
El Paso Police Department Detective James “Jimmy” Loftis has been outspoken about the need to have a police officer stationed on every Canutillo ISD campus at all times.
Loftis, 49, moved to Canutillo in 2015, after working as a police officer in Detroit, Michigan, for over 18 years.
He said he decided to run after hearing complaints about how the district was run when he worked as an off-duty police officer for Canutillo ISD.
“You always hear rumblings in this community about corruption or things that they don’t like about the schools or the schools being unsafe,” Loftis said. “I feel like a lot of people complain, but a lot of people are afraid to stand up and run for the offices or let their voices be heard.”
Now he hopes to use his experience in law enforcement to keep the district accountable.
Loftis said he wants the administration to give monthly spending reports to the board to help address the district’s budget deficit.
“If they would just let the board know every month this is how much we’re spending, and the board could catch the problem right away,” he said.
He said he would like to see the district contract off-duty officers from the El Paso Police Department to ensure someone is stationed at every school, even when officers get called away to deal with nearby emergencies.
Loftis said he opposes including religion in school curriculum, arming teachers and school staff and vouchers.
“I’m in favor of school choice. If parents want to send their kids to any district, I have no problem with that, but I’m not in favor of school vouchers. I don’t think it’s the district’s responsibility to pay for that decision the parents make,” Loftis said.
Jesus Salgado-Ramos
Jesus “Jess” Salgado-Ramos hopes to return to the district from which he graduated just three years ago as a board member.
Salgado-Ramos, 21, graduated from Northwest Early College High School in 2021.
He unsuccessfully ran for one of three at-large seats on the Canutillo ISD school board in 2022. He lost to Cindy Zuniga, Breanne Barnes and Lucy Borrego.
He said his age would benefit the board by offering the perspective of someone who recently went through Canutillo ISD’s education system.
“I think it comes as an asset, and it’s good to have multi-generational opinions when it comes to directing our district,” Salgado-Ramos said.
Salgado-Ramos emphasized the importance of working with local police to keep schools secure and ensuring they are safe, inclusive spaces for students.
He also discussed the need to fix the district’s ongoing budget deficit, to listen to the community and to rebuild its trust as it works on the 2024 bond projects.
“The bond struggled to pass because there was mistrust in the community and I think that ties often to why we need new leadership,” Salgado-Ramos said. “I think that the community understood that we had facilities that needed a lot of work, but they were also fearful of what was going to be done with that money, and I don’t blame them.”
Salgado-Ramos said he opposes including religion in school curriculum, arming teachers and staff and voucher programs.
Laure Searls
Laure Searls lost her re-election bid in 2022 when she sought her fourth consecutive term, having first been elected in 1994. Searles declined El Paso Matters’ request for an interview.
During her time on the board, Searls took on controversial topics including calling for the LGBTQ-themed book “Gender Queer” to be removed from the Canutillo High School Library.
In 2017, she voted, along with Trout, to send a letter to the city of El Paso opposing the construction of the Westside Crossing development, now located at Westside Drive and Artcraft Road.
The letter stated that Canutillo would lose “traditional farmland” to “high density suburban” housing.
Rodriguez voted against sending the letter.
Lilia “Lily” Maldonado
Lilia “Lily” Maldonado, a former teacher for the district, said she wants to give the board input from an educator’s point of view.
Maldonado, 65, retired from teaching fifth grade at Canutillo ISD in June 2023 after working for the district for 28 years.
She now works in the El Paso Independent School District teaching the same grade.
The educator emphasized the importance of transparency with the upcoming bond projects and building trust with the community after projects that were approved during the 2011 bond never came to fruition, such as the middle school portion of Reyes Elementary.
Maldonado said she plans to keep the bond projects on track by questioning any changes that are brought to the board before approving them.
“I expect for there to be some kind of changes, but they need to be minimal,” Maldonado said.
To address the budget deficit, Maldonado said she plans to look at spending in administrative departments for possible savings there.
“One person at central office can take care of more than just one thing, they can have multiple jobs,” she said.
Maldonado said she opposes vouchers, arming teaching and including religion in school curriculum.
“I am not in approval of what TEA is proposing, as far as a curriculum based on religion, because we’re a diverse country. How can you address that diversity through one curriculum, unless you have every single type of religion?” she said.
Robert “Bobby” Simental
Incumbent Robert “Bobby” Simental was appointed to the Canutillo ISD school board in February 2023 after his brother, Coronado, resigned from the board to serve on the El Paso County Commissioners Court.
He is now seeking to be elected for his first full term on the board.
Simental, 57, is a manager for Tamales Lupita restaurant. He previously worked as a private investigator for an immigration attorney and was chief deputy for the El Paso County District Clerk’s Office.
The incumbent blamed the district’s deficit on a lack of state funding and the push for a voucher program.
“It was the money that was earmarked for public education for some reason the governor decided, ‘I’m not giving it to you all’ that hurt us. But we’re on track to get back on budget,” he said. “We’ve cut (the deficit) by at least half or maybe more, and we’re going to keep working to get on budget next year.”
Simental said he opposes arming school employees and opposes including religion in the district’s curriculum, citing the importance of the separation of church and state.
“We have the right to our religious beliefs … but us being public servants, we can’t let that through in our decision making,” he said. “I believe that the schools should not practice or have any teachings with religion.”
Sergio Martinez
Sergio Martinez plans to use his background in architecture and experience to help ensure projects under the 2024 bond run smoothly.
Martinez, 62, took part in designing schools throughout El Paso County, including Canutillo High School.
He works for Tigua Inc., a consulting firm founded by the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo that specializes in national security and government projects.
Martinez said balancing the budget is among one of his top priorities, but noted he does not expect taxes to decrease any time soon.
“If we expect good facilities for kids, we’re gonna end up paying more taxes,” Martinez said.
Martinez said he decided to run because he felt many of the district’s current board members were not equipped for the job.
“Trustees ask the same questions as if they don’t understand what is before them. I see them as being popular enough to get elected, but they’re not able to lead the district,” Martinez said. “It’s time for change. We need to retire those trustees that have been there for a long time.”
The architect said he is not in favor of arming teachers and felt vouchers were unfair for public schools, which cannot decline students like private schools do.
He said he would like more information on the TEA’s curriculum before deciding if he is in favor of it or not.
Martinez was arrested in 2013 on charges of assault causing bodily injury. He told El Paso Matters the arrest happened after a driver followed him and his family in his car to his work, leading to an altercation.
“I was afraid,” Martinez said.
Court records show Martinez was convicted in 2016. He paid over $800 in fines and served 10 days in jail.
