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A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

BY RICKY D. HERNANDEZ

We Saw the Tremendous Power of

People United to Support Our Students

FORWARD! ¡ADELANTE!
Over the last year, I have taken to end my messages to our AASBO
membership with the word adelante, which means forward in Spanish.
As my time as your AASBO Board President draws to a conclusion,
my hope has always been that in our work we do what we can, what we
must to move our schools – our kids – forward. In these past weeks, we
have borne witness to history in our state in the Red for Ed movement.
Whether we agree or disagree with the movement itself, we have to
be awestruck by the tremendous power of people united by a singular
cause – our students. It was a powerful sight to see the support for
our public schools through a uni ed message that resonated across
Arizona.
In the last 3 months, I have been privileged to be part of the Flinn-
Brown Civic Leadership Fellowship. During that time, I heard from
many of Arizona’s leaders in di erent sectors. ese are individuals who
work to make our state better to improve the lives of every Arizonan.
What I saw is that there is amazing work being done by people who
work tirelessly every day. ey, like all of us who work for our students,
do what they need to move our State forward. ese individuals may
not always share the same political ideology, they may think of solutions
for Arizona di erently than our own, but what I saw was promising. I
grew to have a new appreciation and a renewed sense of hope that we
sometimes forget that there are career professionals who are truly doing
amazing things in our State.
e ideas of #RedForEd and #20x2020, each are great movements
and each are trying to achieve positive results for our students and
educators. Neither side is wrong, neither side is worse than the other
when you peel away the political cynicism that sometimes blankets these
conversations. What we all need is not to compromise our convictions,
but to actually comp romise for the sake of solutions for causes that are
greater than ourselves. is is the power of moving adelante…forward.
Finally, in my own mission to do good work for the students of
Arizona, I couldn’t have moved forward without the support of great
people. ank you to my AASBO family, awesome people like Ken,
Jill & Mike, Nate, Lizette, Jeremy, Anabel, Ana & Audrey (the A’s in
AASBO), Chuck (AZ School Finance Godfather), David and a very
special thank you to Charlotte Gates who put me on this path. I know
I am missing a lot of others whom I’ve shared laughter, strategies and
just great memories…thank you to all of those who have journeyed
with me. A special thank you to my-now-former team at the Pima
County School Superintendent’s O ce…where I put a cap on my 15-
year career in K-12…and I’m looking forward as I chart a new path in
higher education at the University of Arizona. I’ll leave you with the
famous words of Winston Churchill, “Success is not nal, failure is not
fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” ¡Adelante!

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