Freshman Democratic Rep. Jesus Rubalcava of Gila Bend is a special education teacher and a longtime school board member in the Gila Bend Unified School District.

As if that’s not enough experience in public education, he also served as president of the Arizona School Boards Association for 2015.

And he’s also a former member of the Gila Bend Town Council, a gig he sought in an attempt to repair relations between the school board and Town Council by serving on both. Now he’s representing Legislative District 4, hoping to become a conduit for communication between the education community and the Legislature.

Why did you get involved in politics at the Town Council level and what brought you to the Legislature?

One thing led to the next. I started off as a school board member for 10 years at the Gila Bend Unified School District, then of course being ASBA president in 2015. But there was a situation where the Town Council and the school board were at odds. Go figure, you know, small town politics. And there was no communication between the two entities, yet we served the same community. It was really hard to get anything done that pertained to the school and town. So my way of solving the problem was to also run for council, hoping to bridge the communication between both entities. Then this position opened up when (former) Senator Lynne Pancrazi decided to run for the Yuma County Board of Supervisors and (former Rep.) Lisa Otondo decided to move to the Senate, leaving a vacancy in the House. I’ve always been involved in helping candidates for the Legislature. I just figured this time, why not have it be me?

So what’s the difference between ASBA and the rest of what we call alphabet soup education organizations?

ASBA’s goal is ensuring every school board member is able to build their skill sets so they can advocate for their students in their districts. So that’s the difference with ASBA – it focuses primarily on the school board member itself. So like ASA (the Arizona Superintendents Association), focuses on the superintendents in the same way. Or like AEA (Arizona Education Association) focuses on the teachers. I think what I have found is you have so many of these groups and they’re all pulling in different directions. They’re all for education, but they’re pulling in different directions. And it makes it hard to know where education is headed in this state.

You got a lot of attention this year for the recess bill. Children everywhere were overjoyed with the idea that they’d be getting 50 minutes of recess per day. I just looked it up again and you amended it in the House and now they put a same-subject striker on it in the Senate that doesn’t specify how long recess would be.

Yeah, what’s happening is we had stakeholders who I think for the most part weren’t taking this serious. It was a freshman Democrat who introduced the legislation – I don’t think anybody thought it would get this far. So when I amended it in the House, I was working with stakeholders. But when it got to the Senate, Senator Sylvia Allen was trying to amend it once again to address concerns from a different set of stakeholders. So that’s where it is now. And she promised that if it went to the floor, it would be amended to include a second recess. Because overall, the bill was to ensure that students were getting more than just the lunch recess. The whole idea behind it is the kids and teachers need a break, and the whole focus on standardized testing has really changed the way we educate our kids and we need to step back.

Few freshmen Democrats get a bill that far along in the process. What advice do you have for your fellow freshmen Democrats?

For me, it’s staying persistent. And you want to study the subject very well. Know what you’re talking about. Because part of what gets it so far is how well you sell it. And a lot of times we’ve got ideas we want to introduce, but we’re not experts in the field, so it’s really hard to sell the idea. So as a freshman to another freshman, my advice would be to do your homework.

How is teaching similar to lawmaking?

One of the things is the mix of personalities. The House is like one huge classroom with 60 different personalities. Everyone has their own opinion. And it is really just like a classroom – you have cliques or groups of legislators that always hang out together. So it does remind you of the classroom setting significantly. I mean, even just the setup – you have your desks in rows, somebody at the front.

So if the House is a classroom, who’s the teacher’s pet and who’s being sent to the principal’s office most often?

It’s hard to tell. I think we have little fires set off here and there. For me, I don’t know what it was like before. I hear it was rough in previous years. But the speaker is very fair. He’s been great to work with.  He’s been very fair to us and patient with us.

Your district covers the largest part of the U.S. Mexico border. What should the state be doing, if anything, at the border?

Well it’s a very touchy topic, especially because 75 miles of the border belong to the Tohono O’odham Nation. It’s tribal land. And I would say that’s probably not the area where traffic is happening. There are a lot of misconceptions about this area. I think where the state can be helpful is having that dialogue, sitting down with the leaders of the Tohono O’odham Nation, and asking where we can help. I think that has happened, it’s just not consistent enough.