Mr. Gomes is the new superintendent of the Selma Unified School District and is prepared to showcase his expertise here in the community of Selma. He sends a surge of enthusiasm toward the district and a promising future of positive revampments. With a passion for change and clarity, Mr. Gomes is poised to start this new journey of success and ambition toward the schools of Selma.
It all began when Mr. Gomes was a bilingual aid in a bilingual classroom in Hillmoor, California. It is the place where he studied as a student and got the job of being an aid in the classrooms right after high school.
However, he didn’t actually know what specific field he wanted to pursue. Mr. Gomes initially thought he’d land in the field of science since he really enjoyed it. In spite of that, an influence of his decision was when his uncle became the principal of a school in Hanford, but at the time he was living in Northern Spain. There Mr. Gomes was studying at the University of Bilbao in the Basque Country, but his uncle wanted him back in Hanford to work with him. His family was happy to hear he was going to come back.
“I came back and I became a Spanish teacher,” Mr. Gomes stated.
Though he had become a Spanish teacher, he had an emergency credential where he finalized his decision in becoming a teacher. This experience influenced him to work toward becoming superintendent.
As superintendent, Mr. Gomes sets a routine for the week.
“That’s meeting with my executive cabinet, my extended executive cabinet, and those two cabinets all connect to a department,” explained Mr. Gomes.
In turn his routine is embedded with individuals of different branches to come to him with additional information.
“They are experts that then bring it in to me and I get updates on how things are going,” Mr. Gomes stated.
These individuals allow him to present solutions, feedback, and support. In fact, he has an early learning group that meets with him and a safety team that brings up information or problems that need to be addressed. Along with those meetings he has additional board meetings every other Tuesday, board preps every week, and he meets with the board President twice a week. Outside of this, Mr. Gomes has county meetings and state meetings about state assembly bills or laws that come through.
“If you look at my calendar I have days blacked out, meaning these will always happen, all the time. Everything else are the spaces in between,” explained Mr. Gomes.
The blacked out days are the days that consist of training, learning, and connecting while other days consist of visiting principals, listening to teachers, connecting with the community, and figuring out problems to solve them. Those are the spaces in between.
In addition, he has worked in Fresno for fourteen years and Hanford for thirteen years. His opportunity of working in Selma has brought core memories from his previous years of teaching and how family-oriented the Selma community is.
“This took me back to my roots of being in Hanford,” expressed Mr. Gomes.
His movement and new beginning in Selma has allowed him to create many goals. He wants to improve many things in the Selma District, but most importantly the academics. That’s his number one goal.
“I want to improve math and ELA yearly,” explained Mr. Gomes. He also wants to reduce suspension and expulsion.
“I want to build culture and climate in the district, people being happy about coming to work, people working with each other, leaders doing a better job with teachers, teachers doing a better job with kids,” Mr. Gomes stated. He believes this doesn’t happen unless you build trust, inspiration, and it has been what they’ve been working to do.
Along with his goals, there are many changes and initiatives he wants to cover as superintendent. He wants to create a universal preschool, change the assessments to better align with the state assessments, expand TK to all schools, and improve Heartland (the continuation school) to change alternative education.
Mr. Gomes wants to build an atmosphere of respect, the allowing of feedback, and having a great moral and culture within the teaching staff.
“Clarity is huge for me and providing time for that clarity to allow you to change practice in the classroom, both teacher practice and to improve outcomes for kids,” expressed Mr. Gomes.
Mr. Gomes, the new superintendent of Selma’s District has many plans in store for the schools in our city and has made it a priority to create success in and out of the classroom.
