# Endorsement: Elect Hector Camacho to lead San Mateo County’s fragmented, unequal school system > Source: > Published: 2026-05-27 19:56:19+00:00 **Getting your** [Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...When it comes to its schools, San Mateo County is not typical. Its 84,000 public school students occupy one of the most fragmented education systems in California. There are 23 separate school districts — 23 approaches to hiring, teaching, housing, budgeting and long-term planning. Menlo Park, a city of only 30,000 people, has five districts. Then there is the inequality. Per-pupil spending in Woodside Elementary School District exceeds $33,000. That’s $18,700 more per student than in neighboring Redwood City Elementary, where teachers make $28,000 less per year. On the county’s western edge, Pescadero public schools have gone without potable water for nearly three decades. And within the same county that has the highest percentage of California’s top-performing public schools, there are also schools at the very bottom. San Mateo County schools’ fragmentation, income inequality and performance gaps will be central challenges for the next superintendent. But the fiercest headwind could be declining enrollment, which will inevitably force leaders to close schools, lay off staff and consolidate services. On their June 2 ballots, voters have two serious candidates to replace Superintendent Nancy Magee, who died in April after nearly eight years leading the San Mateo County Office of Education. Hector Camacho is our choice. Camacho, 45, of South San Francisco, has spent more than 25 years in education, including 17 years as a teacher, counselor and academic adviser. He has taught government, history, economics, English learner courses, ethnic studies and other subjects across school districts here. He later moved into school administration at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, serving as director of guidance and college counseling, where he worked until 2022. For the last four years, he has helped to train and recruit teachers nationwide as an executive at a Bay Area nonprofit. Camacho knows the Office of Education from the outside and the inside. Since 2025, he has served as an executive director of equity, social justice and inclusion in the cabinet of the county superintendent. Before that, he spent 11 years on the San Mateo County School Boards of Education, including three consecutive terms as its president. Camacho’s strongest qualification is his nuanced appreciation for this position’s power. The superintendent cannot run San Mateo County’s 23 districts by dictate. The office does not have the power to erase district boundaries, force consolidation or determine districts’ budgets. Its real power is coordination, fiscal oversight and the ability to help fragmented districts solve problems they cannot handle alone. #### Power of persuasion Camacho understands that. In an interview with our editorial board, he was clear that the job requires more persuasion than coercion. That matters in a county where the next superintendent will have to push wealthy locally-funded basic-aid districts, poorer state-funded districts, labor groups, parents, county agencies and other stakeholders toward common goals. His priorities are the right ones: early literacy, educator recruitment and retention, student mental health and smarter long-term planning as enrollment falls. He also recognizes that declining enrollment cannot be wished away. Districts will have to align staffing, facilities and programs with reality. Avoiding those decisions only makes them more painful later. Camacho’s lone rival – Chelsea Bonini – is a serious candidate whose career trajectory and public service record might understandably appeal to many voters. Based in San Mateo, Bonini, 54, served on the board of San Mateo-Foster City School District from 2013 to 2017, and she has served as a trustee on the San Mateo County Board of Education since 2020. She brings classroom, legal and oversight experience, too. She taught kindergarten and first grade in South San Francisco in the early 90s; recently taught second grade in Los Altos; earned a master’s in educational administration in 2024; and has practiced law for over two decades. But Bonini appears less prepared for the job’s hardest decisions. Her emphases on transparency within the Board of Education and collaboration across districts are valuable, but she did not persuade us that she would push districts toward painful cuts when the numbers demand it. She is backed by the California Teachers Association and local CTA affiliates, but the next superintendent must help districts confront declining enrollment, fiscal imbalances, school closures, layoffs and personnel decisions that may anger her teachers’ union allies. #### Tough choices ahead Camacho told us he supports labor but is not captive to it. After all, he has received his own fair share of endorsements from local unions, which represent school staffers, like janitors. Our interviews convinced us he is more willing to make tough choices, or deep cuts. Camacho also has broader executive and systems-level experience: teacher, counselor, school administrator, board president, county office cabinet member and architect of teacher-pipeline work across more than 220 school systems. Perhaps his background’s breadth explains why he has the backing of four of San Mateo County’s five supervisors and the last three superintendents of its Board of Education. Bonini certainly understands San Mateo County schools’ problems. But Camacho is better prepared to solve them. Voters should elect Hector Camacho. *To read our interviews with candidates Chelsea Bonini and Hector Camacho, please visit these links.*