Secretary-Treasurer Gail M. Mendes, a passionate advocate for California’s teachers and education support professionals, is a veteran Bay Area educator with more than 30 years of experience. She brings that experience and passion to her new role on behalf of these educators, whom she says are at the heart of our schools.
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Gail M. Mendes
Secretary-Treasurer |
Currently a fourth-grade teacher at Bayview Elementary School in San Pablo, Mendes has taught students ranging from preschool age to senior citizens enrolled in Adult Education classes. She worked as a resource specialist and taught in Special Education before becoming an elementary school teacher. Mendes has spent most of her teaching career in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, although she got her start in the Oakland Unified School District.
As a classroom teacher and immediate past president of the 2,000-member United Teachers of Richmond, Mendes knows well the challenges of rural and urban schools, all of which compose the seven-city West Contra Costa School District. In her years of teaching in the financially strapped school district that has been under state receivership, Mendes can attest to the importance of working in well-run, well-funded schools that are supported by the administration and are accountable to the community.
Her longtime experience teaching in a chronically underfunded school district propelled her into becoming active in her local chapter. In addition to her position as chapter president, Mendes has also served as a site representative at her school, area director and vice president of her local association, and as a representative to the CTA State Council of Education, where she served both on the Human Rights and Budget Committees. Her work on the CTA Budget Committee provided her with the knowledge and grounding to run for the position of CTA Secretary-Treasurer. Mendes has also been active politically in several elections and was called on to represent the Alliance for a Better California labor coalition in community forums on the governor’s ill-fated Propositions 74, 75 and 76 in 2005.
Mendes hopes to use her passionate advocacy skills to further energize CTA’s 340,000 members to become even more involved and active in their chapters and their union, which she sees as California’s best hope for obtaining the funding our public schools and colleges need to serve the state's more than 9 million students.
A graduate of California State University, East Bay with a bachelor’s degree in Human Development, Mendes completed her master’s degree in education at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. She has both a lifetime multiple subject and special education credential, and is NCLB compliant.