A University of Louisiana at Lafayette professor has announced her candidacy for the Lafayette Parish School Board.

Kathleen Schott Espinoza sent out a press release Thursday afternoon announcing she's entering the race for Greg Awbrey's District 6 seat.

Espinoza said she's spent 20 years as an educator, with 10 years in higher education and five years each as a high school social studies teacher and as an adult English-as-a-second-language teacher.

She has worked with the "Swamp BESE" group, which rallied against charter schools at Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meetings last year, and she's also active with the League of Women Voters and Power of Public Education Lafayette, two groups that have facilitated public awareness as the state implements Common Core.

"I do not accept that we have failing schools: I believe we have challenges in our system that take hard work, care and community support to meet," Espinoza says in the release.

Espinoza is married to Rodolfo, president of the Lafayette Parish Association of Educators. She is the fifth person to announce candidacy for the Lafayette Parish School Board.

District 1: Former Lafayette City-Parish Council Member Mary Morrison is running for Mark Babineaux's seat

District 4: Former NAACP president Joshua Broussard is running for Tehmi Chassion's seat

District 9: Once school board committee member Jeremy Hidalgo and UL Lafayette professor Brian West are both running for Rae Trahan's seat

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