Election 2014: Julie Aranibar: Manatee School Board, District 5

EAST COUNTY — To Julie Aranibar, the only direction to move is forward.

Throughout her four years on the Manatee County School Board, she has been a member of a team that weathered lawsuits and was mired in millions of dollars of debt.

Personally and professionally, Aranibar, 55, knows all about trying to move forward.

She left home when she was 17 years old and spent the next 12 years working her way through school to become a researcher and molecular histologist.

In 1999, the mother of two began volunteering in Manatee County schools. She chaired parent-teacher organizations, served on advisory boards and committees, raised money for schools and helped raise awareness on educational issues.

Aranibar learned early on how important an education can be. When she was 10 years old, Aranibar was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The teacher who oversaw her education throughout her illness not only taught her reading, writing and arithmetic but also inspired her to leave her poor neighborhood behind and create a better life for herself.

Now Aranibar is continuing to help those teachers who exhibit the same enthusiasm for education while staying focused on her main objective: better educating students while being financially responsible.

That objective became difficult when February 2013 audit findings suggested years of financial mismanagement by former Superintendent Tim McGonegal.

But, since January, Aranibar believes the school district has made gains toward creating a sustainable and positive fund balance, among other corrections, which she hopes to uphold should she win her seat Nov. 4.

Aranibar and candidate Mary Cantrell are competing for the District 5 school board seat in a runoff, after a primary election in August.

Aranibar views losing the seat as a step backward.

“The school district is in the best shape it has been in for a while,” Aranibar said, smiling. “We’re moving forward, in a positive direction. I’ve lived and been active in this community for years. I am that public school advocate.”

Aranibar’s time on the board has been a book of lessons learned from both mistakes and successes. She has put in the footwork with two eras of superintendents, from whom she has learned a diverse set of lessons.

The mental notes she took from McGonegal’s tenure came to light after he resigned in 2012.

McGonegal previously chaired the audit committee before he left the district, which Aranibar felt contributed to the $7 million in audit fines the district received in May.

When she was elected to the district in 2010, Aranibar remembers not being able to find basic information that related to schools, such as the number of employees within the school system.

“We as a school board are more transparent than we’ve ever been,” Aranibar said. “When I’m handed a financial document, I know and trust that it has correct information now.”

Although the district is currently handling a lawsuit from Citizens for Sunshine Inc., because of a Sunshine violation during the process of hiring a security firm to place community officers at area elementary schools, the district’s chairwoman thinks the current district administrators are transparent.

Currently, the district is 10 points away from a B ranking.

Aranibar, whose children attended East County schools, is pushing for an A rating.

A familiar face is what Aranibar believes area schools need.

“By bringing someone new in, who doesn’t know what worked and what didn’t work and who doesn’t understand what hurt the district in the past, the same mistakes could be made,” Aranibar said. “We’re at a pivotal point here with this election — we move forward or we turn back.”

Julie Aranibar
Age: 55

Why education? “A teacher changed my life. I can’t think of a better way to support them than to work for the district.”

Résumé: Manatee County School Board member; medical practice consultant; research assistant at the University of Connecticut; histology lab supervisor at Yale University; and American Cancer Society volunteer, among other roles.

Hobbies: She enjoys reading to children. She has visited most of the county’s 54 schools. In the future, she’d like to read to classes weekly.