Candidate for
Member; Riverside County Board of Education; Trustee Area 6

Biography of Ronald Quinton (Ron) Gentry

Ron Gentry's career in education extends over forty years as a teacher in elementary, middle, high school and adult school, and as an alternative education assistant principal and adult school principal. He also was president of the teachers' union in Coachella Valley Unified School District when it began its period of bankruptcy in the early 1990's.

After retirement from full time service in 2004, he continued working as a part time adult ESL teacher in Palm Springs Unified School District and the past four summers in Oaxaca and Michoacán in an in-service training program for Mexican teachers to improve their English teaching skills. This is as a volunteer with Sueños Compartidos, a non-profit organization that collaborates with the Binational Migrant Education Program and the departments of education in those two Mexican states. He plans to return to Michoacán this summer.

He is currently working for a tutoring company with two students in Salton City and volunteering at Saul Martinez Elementary School in the classroom and in the after school program with a ukulele class. He also volunteers with his church and three local ukulele players groups.

Ron was born in Orange, Texas and grew up in Pasadena, Texas. He graduated from high school in 1962 and attended San Jacinto Junior College for one year. From August 1963 to October 1965 he was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in southern Mexico, where he had his first experience in teaching English as a Second Language.

Ron received his Bachelor's Degree in Spanish and English from Brigham Young University in 1968. After coming to teach with Desert Sands Unified School District that same year he earned Life Elementary, Secondary Single Subject, Bilingual Cross-cultural and Administrative Services Credentials through graduate studies at CSU, San Bernardino, UC Riverside and the University of Houston. He also received a Certificate of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Cal State San Bernardino.

He worked for Los Angeles Unified School District as a Bilingual Elementary teacher from 1982 to 1986. In 1986 he returned to the desert to work at the Adult School in Coachella Valley USD until retirement in 2004. After that he worked part time at Palm Springs Adult School until it closed in 2009. Last year he was recruited as a part time GED instructor at the Torres Martinez Reservation in Thermal by Professional Tutors of America, Inc.

Ron has three grown children, Marcos, Elisa and Celina, all of whom received their K-12 education in Desert Sands schools. His daughter, Elisa; son-in-law, Israel, and his daughter- in-law, Allison, are teachers in Coachella Valley USD. His granddaughter attends John Glen School in Desert Sands USD, and his step granddaughter is a graduate of Shadow Hills High School, also in Desert Sands, and attends Redlands University.