LAS CRUCES – Jesse Gonzalez, a New Mexico native who served as Las Cruces Public Schools superintendent for more than 11 years before leaving at the turn of the century, died last weekend at age 85.
Retired educator Del Hansen said Gonzalez’s tenure, from the end of 1989 through August 2001, encompassed “the glory years” at LCPS: “We were at the forefront of a lot of cutting-edge ideas in education, and I think Jesse allowed that to happens.”
Gonzalez left the Bernalillo Public Schools to succeed LCPS Superintendent Harold W. Floyd and stayed into the new century before leading the Compton Unified School District in California for several more years until he retired in 2007. At the time of his death, Gonzalez resided in Georgetown , Texas, according to his family.
In the wake of his departure, the district came to turmoil as two members of the school board and three former members faced criminal charges in 2002, accused of violating New Mexico’s open meetings law when they approved $390,000 in incentive pay for Gonzalez in 2000 and 2001 Board members Jeanette Dickerson and Mary Tucker were recalled by voters in 2002.
Gonzalez was not accused of wrongdoing and declined requests to return the payments.
“His tenure was a very positive, shining light in the Las Cruces Public Schools’ history,” Hansen said. “He was a good man. I didn’t agree with him on everything, but … he supported his staff, he supported his principals, and I think we went in the right direction.”
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Gonzalez’s nephew, Randy Granger of Las Cruces, recalled his uncle’s distinctive laugh and love of jokes, but said he also saw how driven he was.
“His background was challenging,” he said, “but it was his work ethic and integrity that was key in everything he did. … When he asked you a question he would listen — really listen — when you answered. I don’t recall my uncle ever speaking ill of anyone, even his harshest public critics.”
A ‘hand-to-mouth’ childhood
The man who ultimately led three school districts was born Jesus Gonzalez on a San Miguel, NM pecan farm — where his father worked as a foreman — on March 29, 1937.
The seventh of 11 children, he later described the family’s existence as “hand-to-mouth” with the entire family living and working on Stahmann Farms. Gonzalez switched elementary schools frequently while harvesting at different locations around Dona Ana County.
Gonzalez’s father, a farm worker born in Spain, died when he was a child. His mother, a native of Chihuahua City in Mexico, fell ill a few years later and the family split up when he was 9.
In a 1997 autobiographical article for the Southern New Mexico Historical Review, Gonzalez recalled how he and his peers were treated in the classroom:
“We were considered ‘different’ from the other students. Teachers humiliated us in front of the class in order to check us for piojos (head lice), forced us to drink milk in front of the class because we were supposedly undernourished, then place us in a corner in the back of the room because our clothes were not clean.”
Gonzalez graduated from Hobbs High School in 1958, after the family moved to be near the oil fields where his older brothers found employment. While he proudly claimed to be the high school’s first Hispanic alumnus, his description of those years was harrowing:
“I was called pepper belly, wetback, beaner, spic and other names — all new to me. I could only attend one theater in town. For many years I could not go to Jackson’s Drug Store, the favorite student hangout. When I was allowed to go in, I had to sit in the back of the store. I could not open date Anglo girls. When I went to neighboring towns in Texas, I was not served in some restaurants nor welcomed in motels. I was able to escape the pain of day-to-day living in the new world that reading opened for me — thanks to the helpful people at Stahmann Farms who had taught me English.”
Gonzalez earned a bachelor’s degree at New Mexico State University in 1964, exploring law school before turning to education with additional study at Eastern New Mexico University. Soon after, he began teaching Spanish, US history and social studies.
In 2001, he told the Los Angeles Times he drove a bus to make ends meet, “for the school district that he would run one day.”
He went on to complete a course of advanced Spanish studies in Spain, a credential in school counseling from Pepperdine University in California, and two more graduate degrees: A master’s in school administration from California State University, Fullerton in 1976 and a Ph.D. from NMSU in 2000.
In Gonzalez’s time, Hansen said, “it wasn’t easy for a Hispanic person to move to that level of leadership — and he did.”
A tough assignment at Compton
From those early years, Gonzalez Rose as a classroom teacher, administrator, coach, personnel director for the Hobbs schools and superintendent of the Bernalillo Public Schools, all before taking the job in Las Cruces.
Hansen remembered Gonzalez as a leader who allowed school sites to make independent decisions.
“That was quite refreshing,” he said. “He empowered the schools, particularly secondary schools. He said, ‘I want to see something different. I want to see something new. I want to see something that will put our school district in front;’ and he said, ‘You do it. Get back to me.'”
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Gonzalez ultimately left New Mexico’s second-largest school district for an even more daunting assignment heading up public schools in Compton.
At the time, Compton Unified was one of the lowest-performing districts in California and just emerging from a state takeover. The district was also struggling to secure textbooks, maintain its physical facilities in the midst of the community’s high unemployment and economic pain, gang activity and violence at school sites and in the community.
Compton’s current school board president, Micah Ali, said the board observed a moment of silence in honor of Gonzalez at its Tuesday meeting.
“There is no doubt that we indeed stand upon the former superintendent’s shoulders and are saddened by his passing,” Ali wrote to the Las Cruces Sun-News, adding that Gonzalez was “a treasured contributor toward the education of tens of thousands of district alumni . Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers are with his family.”
During his tenure in Compton, in 2003, Gonzalez welcomed former President Bill Clinton, whom he had met previously in New Mexico, to a new elementary school named for Clinton.
With Gonzalez at his side, Clinton told the children present, “You can learn more than you think you can, and education is the key to everything you want to do.”
Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, [email protected] or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.
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