Voice4Equity welcomes Dr. Gloria Ciriza, San Diego County Superintendent of Schools. During her discussion with Dr. Kishimoto, Dr. Ciriza shares her personal story as she enters the superintendency role as the first woman to hold the position in the San Diego County School District in 76 years and offers valuable advice to women aspiring to leadership roles, emphasizing the need for perseverance and mutual support. Enjoy the conversation as Dr. Ciriza and Dr. Kishimoto highlight the importance of authenticity, collaboration, and continuity in leadership.
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Dr. Kishimoto
Welcome to The Stories We Tell, July edition. I am thrilled to have with me Dr Gloria Ciriza, from the superintendency of the San Diego County School District. Welcome Gloria.
Dr. Ciriza
Thank you so much. What a joy it is to be here with you today. I am honored and thrilled to be in this position and to engage in this conversation with you today.
Dr. Kishimoto
It’s so much fun to talk to colleagues across the country, especially during these major change periods. I know you were serving as the assistant superintendent, and I believe in student support services. It might be a different title there, but you had this whole array of incredible responsibilities from special ed to juvenile justice and detention to support services of different areas. Now, you’ve just been named the county superintendent. Congratulations!
Dr. Ciriza
Thank you. You’re right; being able to serve in this role as the Assistant Superintendent of Student Services was huge. That role involved such a broad range of oversight, including special ed, juvenile court, student wellness, and mental health and community schools. I feel fortunate that I got to do that because the lessons I learned about supporting our students in San Diego in so many different ways were such a valuable experience.
It was perfect that I was in that role and was able to learn. It’s an area of leadership I didn’t have access to as a site principal nor in my former district in Chula Vista. Those were all resources and services that I, as a curriculum and instruction leader, didn’t get to learn as well as I have in this role. So, it’s very exciting.
Dr. Kishimoto
You have not only learned this in this role but also have 30 years of education history. You were already a superstar leader, even before being named to this role, and you are highly experienced.
I have a lot of fun having these conversations with women like yourself, who I respect, know, and are friends with. I’m just showcasing you and the amazing leadership you’re bringing to support our nation’s students.
Dr. Ciriza
Thank you. Well, I’m very excited to be in this role.
Dr. Kishimoto
I’m constantly scanning the media. I want to know who’s been named. I want to know the conditions, what’s happened. I’m always following the ins and outs of superintendents across the nation, especially our women superintendents, who I love supporting and being there for. One of the interesting things about the media blips out there is that you are the first woman to serve in this role in 76 years of County history. So, I have to ask, were there no qualified women before Gloria came along?
Dr. Ciriza
San Diego County is full of qualified women who could have stepped up into this role. That’s what’s so exciting. Well, it’s sad that it’s taken this long for a woman to be able to sit in this spot. But even just as I look out among all the incredible leaders here in San Diego County, those are women who not only supported me and lifted me up along the way, but just to be able to represent female leaders and educators in this seat is such an honor. And as women leaders, oftentimes we pause and think, my goodness, I’m not worthy. But I look out at all the women and think, my goodness, I am not worthy. There are so many incredible women leaders, and I look forward to tapping into their brains and lighting up their assets and talents as I lead from this seat. So, it is surprising that it has taken this long, but really, it’s just an incredible feeling to be here and light up all those incredible people out there now.
Dr. Kishimoto
It’s fantastic! I interviewed Kimberlee Armstrong, and she was named to the superintendency seat at Portland Public Schools in Oregon just this week. So, I’m excited about her going into that role. And then Sonia Dinnall, a future interviewee, was named in Massachusetts at Springfield Public Schools. She went through the Hartford Public Schools, and so we have this long history together. It’s just so exciting to see these amazing leaders leading across our nation.
Dr. Ciriza
I cannot wait to meet them, and I already feel, through you, that there is a sisterhood forming here of us jumping into this role as women who are taking the helm.
Congratulations to both of them for also being named as superintendents.
One of the things that is really important now that we’re here is how we lead together in support of each other in systems that have never had a woman leading. I’m excited for them and looking forward to connecting with them and building that network.
It also makes me think about our responsibilities. We’re here, and we broke through that barrier, and we’re paving the way. Now, how solid and strong and steady are we to hold the door open and make sure that all that incredible talent and leadership continues to flow through those pathways? It’s very exciting.
Dr. Kishimoto
Absolutely, and what’s interesting is the point you’re making about the fact that you can’t take it for granted that it’s just about naming a woman, a woman of color, into a position and assuming then that, okay, we met this goal of diversifying our history in terms of who is leading. No, you have to be intentional. You have to provide support. You have to be part of a network. All of you need to be connected with each other and those of us who led before you to support you. The strength is in that collaboration. I love that you’re pointing to that.
There’s plenty of work ahead of you, and there’s already plenty of work on your lap, but I’d love just to take a step back and let folks get to know you. Who is Gloria? How would you introduce yourself to a new community, not in terms of your work or education, but who you are outside of work?
Dr. Ciriza
So, I’m all things—mother, daughter, sister, wife—all of those things that make us whole outside of work. One of the things that I feel so proud to be able to talk about in this role is that I am the daughter of some incredible people. My mom is a superhero. She had me when she was very, very young.
In Tijuana, her family didn’t have a lot, like access to quality education and care in general. It was really hard for them. And so, to be able to tell her story and to be able to persevere and do this work and be in this position to look at her and say, thank you for the sacrifices that she made coming to this country as a young woman, really in survival mode, trying to figure it out all by herself. I feel so proud.
We always talk about how important the family structure is and how important it is to have somebody in your life who can support you. And for me, that was her. And so, I feel really proud of that. My family in Tijuana is very proud of me, too. I am the first generation born in this country, and I don’t take it lightly that the experiences that I went through being born here to a young teen immigrant who didn’t get her citizenship until I was probably 12, all of those lived experiences are relatable to a lot of the families that are here now. I feel fortunate to be in this seat and have that context at the forefront.
Aside from that, I have two daughters and an amazing husband. I also have a niece who lives with me. To have three young women of color in my household and to be able to do this work, I feel proud to be with them and to support them. They’re the next generation. And quite honestly, they teach me so much about how to be and how to just acclimate to the way kids are now. I feel blessed.
Dr. Kishimoto
Certainly, the young people in our lives teach us so much, right? They’re a great reflection on keeping us in check, keeping it real with us, which is why work in education is so amazingly rewarding. We need to have that next generation and those future generations as part of the people who pass through our lives just like we’re passing through their lives.
Thank you for sharing some of that personal narrative. So much of who we are as women leaders is that we show up with everything we are right: our family, our culture, our languages, our history. That’s all of who we are when we show up at the door, and it’s so important to how we lead.
I’d love to ask about your experience as part of the Voice4Equity Women Superintendents’ Leadership Academy. It’s focused on policy. We had a lot of fun getting to know each other through those academies. What did that experience mean to you in terms of being in the space withother women talking policy?
Dr. Crizia
Thank you for that question because I will be honest with you: when I was informed that I was selected to be in this position, I thought about that experience because some of the things I talked about during my interview were based on that experience. One of the things about policy is that for up-and-coming leaders we don’t always get to dance in that arena. We don’t always get to participate in ways that Voice4Equity allows us to. And so I feel grateful that I had just had that experience months before I stepped into this process. It gave me so much, not just insight, but confidence in my ability to talk about what it means to be an advocate for policy, about what it means even to write new policy or to identify an area where we feel like there’s a gap where there needs to be attention to things, and so just the experience alone was helpful, but, but it’s a tool that you add to your tool belt. That makes you a more thoughtful, impactful leader in whatever space you’re in.
The other thing that was profound in the way that the structure of the cohort was established was that we were leaders from all over the country, and so for a small group of women to come together in a room being from different parts of the country and have so much in common about what we were seeing and what we wanted for young people in our educational system was just incredible. To be able to talk about policy and design and develop policy in a way where there was no fear of being judged in what I know or don’t know about how this process works, and so the authenticity of how we could come together with no filter, nobody was wearing any kind of mask in any way. It was just, we are in here. We want to learn. We want to connect and do good work together. And so the atmosphere that was created in how we could come together is something that I realized should be happening everywhere. It shouldn’t be that this wonderful, unique opportunity through Voice4Equity with this small group of women, where we get to talk and engage in this way, is happening, and that’s magic. That magic is now our responsibility to carry outside of that sphere and model that kind of leadership as we move forward. Especially for those women we know have that incredible leadership gift.
Dr. Kishimoto
Gloria, as you know, in this work, especially now, as you’re In the superintendency, it can feel like you’re alone. You’re couched in the context of San Diego County, the history and people there, and having the opportunity to network outside of that. What you shared was that you realize there’s so much commonality. And what we’re all thinking across the country, the kind of things we’re passionate about, the responsibility and the work that we do is full of our commitment and passion and vision and being able to have those moments where we can talk about that in a space where we’re not being judged, as you stated, right? It’s just where we can be our authentic selves and say, How do I think about this? How do we feel like we’re doing our best work? And how do we, in fact, change lives, right? That’s the work we’re doing. And so that’s a huge responsibility we have.
Dr. Ciriza
Absolutely, and the more practice we have to show up for each other in that way, the more confident and comfortable we feel in that skin at this level of leadership. So, even just going through the process of, let’s ask questions about that. Or what does that mean?
I remember the activity that you did with us about using artificial intelligence and chat GPT, and how do we use this in an authentic way that is helpful in shaping our ideas, or is helpful in contributing or to feeding artificial intelligence the kinds of questions that we as women leaders have; I thought was really helpful, because sometimes you’re in an arena where I don’t want to raise my hand and ask, What do you mean? How does ChatGPT work? And so to be able to experience things like that together and just be ourselves in exploring tools like that was really fun, but just so important for us to be able to walk away with those experiences and use them in our work. So super relevant, really meaningful for the work that we do and has carried on and it’s working. I mean, look what happened!
Dr. Kishimoto
You’re in the seat. That’s great. You did all that.
Now, what’s interesting is you’re going into a position where you’re following a leader who was there for seven years. We often feel like when we’re filling a seat that’s been held by someone for a considerable amount of time, seven years is a long time, in the superintendency in this nation. How do you ensure that you go in and you lead authentically, you lead as Dr. Ciriza, and you don’t feel pressured to backfill expectations of the person you’re replacing? Paul Gothold was a wonderful leader there. He and I were colleagues at USC, and I appreciate the work he did there, but now you’re the one leading. And so how do you transition the community to really see you as coming in with your own style, with your own focus, and an authentic way that you’re going to bring that equity lens?
Dr. Ciriza,
Yeah, that’s a great question, and it is one that I’m being asked a lot. You know, a lot of people ask that same question. Dr Gothold, there’s nobody like him. There is nobody like him, and I can never be like him that way. He has been such an incredible mentor to me over the three years that I got to work with him, I learned so much.
In fact, I tell this story everywhere I go, and so he’s heard this before, too, but I heard him speak years ago when he first stepped into this role as superintendent here at the county, seven years ago. I’m from San Diego County, and I didn’t know who Paul Gothold was. I listened to him speak, and I was just stunned, and thought, Who is this person? And made up my mind like, one of these days, I am going to work with him, and at a minimum, I’m going to learn everything I can from this man.
And so that I got to join his team and be part of his team for three years was just incredible. And so what I would say to that is, I’m going to be me in this role. I’m going to be Gloria Ciriza in this role. And what Paul taught me is how to really, genuinely lead from the heart. So that idea of the moral compass being firmly pointed towards the right direction, we call it our North Star, giving permission for our leaders that are here at the county office on our team to lead from that way, gave me a chance to learn and to explore and be comfortable in leading from the heart and being my true, authentic self. I think he’s been preparing us for that, and so now that it’s me stepping up into this role, the transition doesn’t feel as daunting. It feels right. I feel comfortable in my skin to step up into this space and to lead from my heart, with my spirit, with all that I have to contribute. That doesn’t feel like I need to live up to be Paul. I’m living up to be what’s true and what is real, and what is good in my heart. And I think that’s what has been so great about his leadership, is that that’s what he does for people. And to know that there’s a whole force out here of us that have learned how to lead from that space is just really exciting, that the work gets to continue. He is going to be missed, for sure, and, and stepping into that space feels exciting and smooth and, and real. I think the board that helped to make that selection, that made the selection to put me in a seat, felt that too, that there’s been so much that has been invested in people and leading from, we call it socially conscious, Human Centered Leadership, that’s what comes to the surface. And so to be able to be here now, and to think about what a future holds for me in leading and supporting all of the amazing superintendents, because there are some, well, ALL incredible superintendents here in San Diego County, that feels really special. So, he’s going to be missed, but his legacy of greatness is going to continue.
Dr. Kishimoto
And that continuity, I love the way you talked about that and talked about that whole human, human-centered kind of leadership, intentional, transition, planning, so much rides on a smooth transition, because we’re talking about the fact that the work does not stop, the support and the love, the care, the education for kids does not stop, because there’s a transition in leadership. The better you can ensure that that leadership is done respectfully, that it’s done well, that there’s preparation both for the person coming in and the person leaving. That ensures that we remain very student-centered as well as human-centered. And we have lots of examples across the country that don’t look like this, and so I am really glad that we can, in this conversation, offer that example of what every single transition should be, from the person leaving, leaving in a very respectful and organized way, to the person coming in, being received with that kind of respect and love from the board, from the community, from staff that’s done in a unified way means that the work continues in a very student-centered way. I love that example. Thank you for sharing that.
Dr. Ciriza
Yeah, absolutely. Just to maybe add on to that a little bit, is that we all have a responsibility to to be supporting and mentoring others, right? And so, we should never stop thinking about who’s next. And that phrase about how we rise while lifting others is so true. We have to always be thinking about who is the next generation, who’s going to step up into this seat next like I’m already thinking about that. So you should always be thinking about, how are we building leadership capacity? How are we helping to support those that are out there, that are thinking about leadership and aspiring to be just not just leaders but in service to our children and families and to our educators and the workforce that is out here doing the best that they can to provide quality support to our kids. I think that’s part of our responsibility,to always be thinking about how we are nurturing the conditions and the environment to be supportive and lifting people up and getting them what they need to just continue to be learners and growers in the field.
Dr. Kishimoto
So I think this is a great place to kind of wrap up. What’s your advice? Or words of wisdom, words of lifting up other women who are seeking superintendencies right now?
Dr. Ciriza
I haven’t ever thought about that. No one’s ever asked me that. I think I would say what keeps coming to mind is to persevere. Like, that idea of perseverance, like, we just don’t stop. If there’s a barrier, we look around it. If there’s a barrier, we work through it or we identify it. We keep learning how to maneuver through challenges and barriers, but to be able to do that and know that, look to your left, look to your right. Look ahead of you. Look behind you. There are always people around you, students, families, teachers, whoever is out there that is in your sphere of support, just to lean on them and keep going. You know, just relentless possibility in what can be. So I would say, just keep leaning on each other and supporting each other. Keep learning and growing. You just never know when the universe is going to open up a path for you to take that step forward and be ready.
I would also say that to all of the women out there thinking about your next step or where you are in this space, I would say in big capital letters with 100 exclamation points after, you are worthy. You are worthy of this space. Your voice matters. We need you. Your heart is full of love that is necessary in this work, in educating and supporting young people worldwide. Good luck to all of you, and I hope to meet some of you someday soon.
Dr. Kishimoto
So Dr Gloria, Ciriza, congratulations! Thank you for uplifting all of us by sharing a bit of your story and showing that hope that you bring to the continued student focus and the equity work that you have been leading and will continue to lead. So, thank you once again for being with us.
Dr. Ciriza
Thank you for having me. What a joy.
