What's at stake?
A key responsibility of the school board – hiring the district’s superintendent – will likely be one of the first big decisions on the docket for whoever wins this and the other two trustee races on the ballot this November.
A longtime Fresno Unified board member faces one of the youngest candidates on the Fresno County ballot in the district’s Roosevelt High School area seat race.
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Trustee Area 2 covers the inner neighborhoods of southeast Fresno, surrounding Roosevelt High School, including Calwa.
The district is bounded to the north by the 180, to the east by Chestnut Avenue, to the west by the 41 and to the south by North Avenue.
Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas, who has held the Trustee Area 2 seat since 2016, is up against challenger Joseph Aquino, a recent graduate of Fresno Unified schools who once served as one of the district’s student trustees on the school board.
Here’s what to know about the Roosevelt candidates’ backgrounds and policy positions in alphabetical order by the candidate’s last name.
Joseph Aquino
Aquino, 19, is a recent graduate of Hoover High School and a current sophomore at Fresno State, majoring in political science.
He served as a student trustee on the Fresno Unified school board in the 2022-23 academic year. He said he’s proud of his work on the board advocating for issues like healthier school lunches.
Aquino said he’s throwing his hat in the ring not long after graduating from high school himself (with the Class of 2023) precisely because of how little time has passed since he was a Fresno Unified student.
“During my time as a student trustee, I got to see a whole different world of advocacy and policy-making. … One thing I did not see,” he told Fresnoland, “was a strong voice and a champion that our students need, especially in the Roosevelt area.
“Despite me coming from the system less than two years ago,” he added, “I’m ready to fight for the system that built me.”
How would he describe the ideal candidate for Fresno Unified’s next superintendent?
Aquino supports the district’s move to open up the superintendent search to external candidates (following backlash over its previous decision to start with internal candidates only).
“We need to have both options. We need to see what options we have in our district because I know we have strong candidates internally,” he said, “but I know there’s strong candidates outside of our school district.”
What does he think of Interim Superintendent Misty Her’s goal of seeing 30-point gains in student test scores over the next two years?
Aquino said the district needs to set ambitious goals like Her’s in order to turn around low student achievement.
“If we continue to set short goals, we’ll continue to see not the best performance within our students,” he said.
Aquino said that starts with being “present” as a trustee in the region he represents.
Parents and students in his district don’t all know who their representative on the board is, he said.
“One thing that I’ve heard is that they don’t know who to turn to when it comes to the board. That they don’t know who their representation is,” he said, “and I think that alone speaks for itself.”
How would he help avoid another teachers strike?
When it comes to the frequently contentious relationship between the teachers union and district administration, Aquino said there “should never be a division between the two” in his view.
“We are Fresno Unified – I want to underscore on ‘unified,’” he said. “We are unified together for one mission, and that is for our kids.”
He added that he wants to work toward a more collaborative relationship between the Fresno Teachers Association and admin.
“Our teachers need more support,” he said. “Our teachers need to have a champion to work together with them … whether it’s classroom sizes or other aspects.
The union has not made an endorsement in the Roosevelt-area race. FTA president Manuel Bonilla said Aquino hadn’t filed to run against Jonasson Rosas by the time it had made endorsements and that the union typically doesn’t get involved in uncontested elections.
FTA withdrew its support from incumbents in the other two trustee races this November.
What’s his approach to balancing the district’s budget?
Two programs Aquino said he’d fight to shield from budget cuts are Fresno Unified’s special education services and English language learner programs.
The special education department faced some of the deepest budget cuts in the 2024-25 school year, The Fresno Bee reported.
And the district’s English learner students have also struggled to become proficient, taking longer to reclassify than research says they should.
“I want to ensure that we allocate funding to those individuals,” Aquino said, “so they can succeed and walk that stage.”
What’s his stance on the district’s $500 million bond measure on the November ballot?
Aquino supports the bond. He didn’t name projects specific to his trustee area but said he would advocate for an equity-based distribution.
“There is an importance to addressing the need first, rather than the want. I think there’s a lot of schools (that) are deteriorating,” he said. “That affects student academic outcomes. So I think we need to address the need before and really help the individuals and the campuses that need the money first.”
Where can I find more information on his campaign?
For more information about Aquino and his campaign, he said voters can visit his campaign’s Instagram account @josephaquino4fusd or his website, www.josephaquino4fusd.com.
Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas
Jonasson Rosas, 40, was first elected to the Roosevelt seat in 2016.
In her day job, she works as a deputy general manager of external affairs for Westlands Water District, California’s largest agricultural water district.
She has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México in Mexico City, as well as a Master of Business Administration from Fresno State.
In her eight years so far on the board, Jonasson Rosas told Fresnoland she’s especially proud of her work championing the district’s one-of-a-kind Hmong dual immersion program, expanding access to the after-school enrichment programs, and ensuring “fiscal prudency” with the district’s one-time funds.
“It’s so easy to get into the trap of committing ongoing expenditures with one-time funds because the needs of our community are so great,” she said.
“But we’ve been able to balance one-time funds with one-time expenditures, and have been, I would say, very prudent to the point where this year, we’ve had to make cuts, but we’re keeping them as far away from the classroom as possible.”
Back in 2016, Jonasson Rosas replaced her husband, Luis Chavez, on the Fresno Unified board. He left the Roosevelt seat for one on the Fresno City Council, and is now running for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in November.
Jonasson Rosas declined to comment on whether she’d consider running for her husband’s seat if he wins his bid for the county board in November.
“I don’t want to engage in speculation,” she said.
“I love serving my community. It does take a lot out of you, but you get a lot at the same time,” she said, “so I just have a hard time talking about the future.”
How would she describe the ideal candidate for Fresno Unified’s next superintendent?
“I think it’s a combination of brain and heart,” Jonasson Rosas said.
“This is a pretty high-level job, so … I don’t mean to take it lightly. But there are things that you can learn,” she said, whereas “your character and integrity are things that come with you. And that’s important to me.”
She said she’s looking for the best candidate for the job, regardless of whether they’re an internal or external candidate.
She also said that while it’s important to find a candidate who is “reflective of our community,” that’s “not the top” consideration.
“The top is being the best person for the job,” she said.
What does she think of Interim Superintendent Misty Her’s goal of seeing 30-point gains in student test scores over the next two years?
“I think it’s doable,” Jonasson Rosas said. “I think we need to have high expectations.”
But it will require narrowing in on key goals that “everybody knows, everybody’s a part of, everybody’s connected to,” she added.
“If we get all of our cannons lined up and firing in the same direction,” she said, “it is doable.”
Her role in that, she said, is listening to her constituents and providing their feedback on how things are going to district leaders.
How will she help avoid another teachers strike?
Jonasson Rosas said she sees FTA, district management and board members as “partners.”
“We can’t succeed without each other. Just like I’m the representative of the community, they’re the representative of an important constituency,” as is each of the district’s unions, she said.
She added that there’s “always going to be a push and a pull when it comes to financial things” between the district and teachers union, but that’s part and parcel of a well-functioning democracy.
“We want to be competitive. We want to be the employer of choice – I believe we are in a lot of respects,” she said. “But there’s always going to be things and work to do.
“Ultimately, if our staff aren’t feeling satisfied, happy in their job, or able to do their job effectively,” she added, “then it hurts our students.”
What’s her approach to balancing the district’s budget?
In the face of future budget shortfalls, Jonasson Rosas said she’ll fight to protect universal after-school and social-emotional support programs for students.
She also hopes to not only protect but boost investments in special education (although the district did ultimately make cuts to the SPED budget this school year).
When it comes to making cuts, “we need to go with a scalpel,” she said.
In her view, that scalpel should take the form of an academic return on investment model, which the district is currently implementing.
The model tasks the district with collecting “a lot more data” to measure the effectiveness of programs and vendors the district contracts with in order to determine which are worth continuing to invest in and which aren’t working.
Jonasson Rosas said she’s been pushing for an ROI program like this since she was first sworn in eight years ago.
“Once it gets fully implemented,” she said, “I’ll say it will be a crown jewel of my however-many-years … that I’m on the board.”
What’s her stance on the district’s $500 million bond measure on the November ballot?
Jonasson Rosas said to receive her support, the district’s bond measure will have to come with an equitable spending plan.
Specifically, she wants a needs-based plan, rather than evenly splitting the resources between the seven trustee areas – something the board debated in September.
She added that she’s always been supportive of bond measures in the past, but she thinks the district has fallen short in equitably allocating those funds across the district.
“I just need to be more vocal and intentional about the distribution of resources,” she said. “It’s an unpopular thing, because it’s hard.”
Where can I find out more about her campaign?
For more information about Jonasson Rosas and her campaign, she said voters can contact her directly at her cell phone number, 559-448-6134, or via email at elizabethjonassonrosas@gmail.com.
Who’s endorsing the candidates?
Joseph Aquino
- The San Joaquin Valley Democratic Club
Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas
- The Fresno, Madera, Tulare, and Kings Counties Central Labor Council
- The Fresno County Democratic Party
- The National Women’s Political Caucus
- Fresno County Democratic Women’s Club
- The Fresno Bee Editorial Board
Who is funding the candidates’ campaigns?
Aquino did not create a fundraising committee, so Jonasson Rosas has the fundraising lead.
Click on the chart below to explore donors to her campaign this year.
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