Where she's from
Maria's mother came up from Hermosillo in the late '70s; her father grew up in Sunnyslope. She and her two younger brothers were raised in a block-stucco off 19th Avenue, across the wash from the elementary school her mom walked them to.
She paid for ASU on a register at a Walgreens at 7th Street and Dunlap — closing shift, four nights a week — and finished her business degree in 2004, the first in her family to do it.
What she does for a living
For five years out of college, Maria was a special-ed paraprofessional in Glendale Elementary. She knows what an IEP meeting actually feels like — the room, the table, the tired teacher.
She left in 2009 for an HVAC contractor and worked her way up to operations manager — a 180-person crew, three monsoon seasons of 24-hour rotation. She knows what a capacity plan looks like, and what it sounds like when a manager covers a bad forecast with a louder slide deck.
Why she's running
Daniel started third grade with 32 kids in his class. Eight miles south, there are PVUSD campuses sitting at 78% of capacity. The board's answer is a $385M bond to build more rooms in the corridor that's already full.
"I'm not anti-funding. I'm anti-asking-twice. Parents deserve to see the numbers before they're asked to vote on them."
VOTEGTR Demo Site — Maria Salgado-Whitman is a fictional candidate created for demonstration. This site is illustrative only and is not affiliated with any real campaign, committee, candidate, or school district. Paid for by VOTEGTR for demonstration purposes.
