Serena Johnson:
How has your background prepared you for this office?
Jacob Trujillo:
I think there's two ways. There's a lived experience and a work experience. I'm the first public education commissioner who actually went through state charter schools. Like the system we govern, I'm the only one who's actually been through it. But it's also a very technical board where, for the last 5 years, I've worked for Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, and I've worked especially a lot in the federal grant world, in legislation – where everything is very technical – which has really sharpened my skills to overlook applications like this. But the other lived experience part is just being, like, I call myself – I was a poor brown kid in New Mexico, and I was a Martinez/Yazzie student, so it's knowing to look out for kids like that too.
Serena Johnson:
What are the top issues facing your district currently?
Jacob Trujillo:
In my district, we have, I believe it's 14 charter schools. So, what a lot of folks in my district are wondering is, are these charters affecting our traditional public schools? Are they taking students? Are they taking staff? Are they taking resources? Because we have a lot of charters; and, while a good charter can really move the education ecosystem forward and offer a new path, there are some that try to sneak by and maybe don't offer something very unique. But again, back to the Martinez/Yazzie students of like – we can see scores, but who is actually represented in these scores, and are Martinez/Yazzie students taking advantage of the charter pathway or not? We never want to take money away from schools and hurt schools; where, in some communities, adding another charter would absolutely destroy their traditional school, which we cannot do.
Serena Johnson:
So, what are your proposed solutions to those issues?
Jacob Trujillo:
A big thing of charters that scare me and where charter worked in my situation and works for thousands of kids across New Mexico, but there's also this giant Republican playbook that calls for the expansion of charter to lead to the privatization of education. But that's why I'm glad I'm on this board now, because I can talk to my colleagues in a technical way about these issues and be able to actually shed light, but it's hard to bring those institutional changes just to PEC. If we're just wanting to move education forward, we all need to do a little bit more in our communities to let folks know that there is an oversight body to these charter schools. This is what we do. This is what we're looking for. If you see or hear stuff in the community, please know to bring it to us. So, it's more of a culture change in the PEC than a written one, I think.
Serena Johnson:
And what else do you – what else is important for your voters to know about your campaign?
Jacob Trujillo:
I always love to highlight the huge win we had for the primary. The original candidate for this race was disqualified. So, when I jumped in as a write in candidate, we got about 700 signatures to become a write in candidate, and then I needed at least 350 to move on to the general, and we got almost 5000. We only had, I think, $2000 at the time. So we were, we still are, a very grassroots campaign. To get that many folks to actually write me in with the money we spend was a huge win, and I think it just shows my very broad community support.
