Redondo Beach Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Steven Keller was in the middle of his presentation at Redondo Beach’s State of Education event when, as he thanked the many players who made the night possible, he pointed out a man who is often in the background.
“Thanks to Ricardo Gallegos, who is both my left and right hand, and the board’s left and right hand,” Keller said.
Gallegos laughed, flattered by his boss’s compliment.
His job in Redondo Beach, as executive assistant to both Keller and the district’s school board, is actually his third stop in education, and his third working with Keller.
The two initially crossed paths in Gallegos’s hometown of Baldwin Park. At the time, Keller was the district’s director of student achievement. Gallegos was working as an education liaison for the Baldwin Park Unified School District, and was considered among the “movers and shakers” of the department.
“He liked that, he saw that we were invested in our positions, and he and I hit it off,” Gallegos said. The two would continue their professional relationship years later in the Laguna Beach Unified School District, before Gallegos applied for an open position as Executive Assistant at RBUSD in 2007.
Gallegos is the son of Mexican immigrants, and the second of three children. “They always encouraged us to go into higher education. I don’t think they knew what it meant — it wasn’t what it is today, and it’s the focus in a lot of schools now,” he said.
Gallegos’s initial focus wasn’t education — he wasn’t an excellent student, he admits — but concert lighting. The arts were his tether to school growing up.
“Actually, at the end of my sophomore year in high school, I wanted to drop out. I didn’t want to be there,” he said. “Music is what kept me there.”
Gallegos had a difficult time staying with school, he admitted; he was disorganized, he had poor study habits and, as he put it, the support systems just weren’t there. “It was a different time; it seemed like counseling was more geared toward the top of the class,” he said. Were he a student at Redondo Union High School today, provided with the outreach programs that assist today’s students, he might have had a different experience, he said.
But his challenges at the time, and those that continue today, have been dealt with, one step at a time, through diligent note taking, and a calendar “that I live on,” he said.
He started at Baldwin Park as an instructional aide, assisting bilingual students, before moving up the ladder, creating and facilitating workshops to help students and parents better understand their school system.
“Things that were as basic as how the grading system worked, but it was stuff that I saw my parents didn’t understand growing up,” he said. “I was doing things that I felt I didn’t get, and creating programs that I knew were beneficial.”
The pride of his professional life, thus far, was the “Juntos” program that he developed in Laguna Beach — a mentoring and tutoring program that matched struggling, Spanish-speaking middle-schoolers with successful high-schoolers.
Now, his work is behind the scenes — where he prefers to be. He manages schedules, assists in public relations, and sets agendas for every school board meeting. “Everything that happens in this district goes across my desk — my hands touch it at some point,” he said. “I miss working with students, but I know I’m still involved indirectly in some way, and I like that.”
“He’s what I call a ‘closer,’” Keller said. “He’s someone who I can give a project to and know that it’ll be taken care of.”
“‘One more step up,’ that’s the way it is with [Keller],” Gallegos said. “My fear is that, if I ever have to work for someone else, he or she won’t be like that, and I’ll get bored.”
That’s what he appreciates at Redondo; everyone, from his boss, to the school board, to the public, is focused directly on kids, and making a good district better. “I don’t necessarily go for ‘easy,’” he said. “I like the challenge.” ER
