Candidate for
Member; County Board of Education; Trustee Area 3

Mary Galuska became a volunteer in public education when her oldest daughter entered Kindergarten more than 22 years ago. All three of her children attended 12 years of public school in the Orange Unified School District (OUSD). Mary spent every year advocating for children's education, health and welfare, taking numerous leadership positions and serving on a variety of school-related committees. These experiences gave Mary a wealth of knowledge in many aspects of public education in California, including the complexity of education budgets, the importance of parent and family involvement in the learning process, and the need for every child to have the same opportunity to achieve in a safe and healthy school environment.

Mary has been a leader in PTA for over 20 years. She began as a classroom volunteer and served in a variety of positions at the local, school district, county, and state levels of PTA. She spent two years as president of Fourth District PTA, which covers all of the PTA schools in Orange County, and served two terms on the Board of Directors of California State PTA, as Secretary and Vice President of Programs and Member Services. Currently, Mary is on the California State PTA Board of Managers as both a leadership mentor and co-chair of the Special Committee for Arts Education. As a volunteer for the largest child advocacy organization in the world, Mary has taught dozens of classes and made numerous keynote speeches and other presentations throughout the state.

Mary is proud to have been a board member for the first charter school in Orange County, Santiago Middle Charter School in Orange. During her two year tenure on the board, she and the other board members were responsible for crucial decisions about the budget and operations of the charter school. Mary has been a member of several education committees in OUSD and at the Orange County Department of Education. In OUSD, those committees included math textbook selection, school safety plan development, and the Legislative Coalition, among others. During 10 years on the Fourth District PTA board, Mary worked closely with the Orange County Department of Education, serving on the School Attendance Review Board committee, Arts Advantage, and the committee to help develop health plans for the local school districts. Mary is also co-chairman of the Orange Arts Alliance.

In her life as a "professional volunteer," Mary also held a variety of offices and other board positions for the Orange Junior Soccer Club, North Sunrise Little League, and Villa Park Girls Softball League. She volunteers for her parish of St. Norbert Catholic Church, is a past member of Childhelp, International, and currently is a volunteer for Friends of the Library for the City of Orange.

Mary graduated from Grossmont High School in La Mesa, California in 1975, and continued her education at the University of San Diego, earning a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1979, and a Masters of Management from Northwestern University (1980) with a dual major of Marketing and Finance. Her business career included positions as a Market Administrator at Pacific Bell, and Account Executive at both Pacific Bell and AT&T. While raising her three children, Mary took on a variety of part-time positions, including Marketing Professor at National University, Lay Reader (grading assistant) for the Fountain Valley Unified School District, and Real Estate Agent for Tarbell Realtors. Her primary focus since Kelly was born, however, has been her children and their education.

Mary has been married to her husband Aleck for 29 years, and is the mother of Kelly (27), Andy (25), and Katie (23). She is proud to say that her children are all college graduates, and all educated in the public schools of Orange Unified School District!