Blanca Cavazos

Retired Superintendent, Taft Union High School District

Superintendent of Taft Union High School for eight years, Cavazos has been knocking down educational barriers, like the ones she faced as a child, throughout her 40-year career as a teacher and administrator in schools throughout Kern County.
She has come a long way from her early days as a Mexican-born student in Arvin punished for speaking Spanish at school and often told she didn’t have much of a future.
She was named administrator of the year by the Association of California School Administrators in 1995, 2004, 2015 and 2019; received the migrant alumni award from the California Department of Education in 2012; and was a finalist for national superintendent of the year honors.
Cavazos was an assistant principal at Bakersfield Adult School and Foothill High before becoming the first female and first minority principal at Arvin High. She was chief instructional officer at the Kern County Superintendent of Schools office before ascending to superintendent of the Taft Union High School District in 2013.
At CSUB, Cavazos has supervised student teachers, taught education and Spanish courses, served as president of the Hispanic Excellence Scholarship Foundation and been a member of several education advisory committees. She currently serves on the President’s Advisory Board.

Notable CSU Alumni in education