From Classroom Teacher to Experienced Superintendent, Cali Binks Makes Countywide Bid

Before Cali Binks became a longtime superintendent, before she helped lead two San Bernardino County school districts, and before she began campaigning to become the County’s next Superintendent of Schools, she was a little girl sitting at a school desk her mother brought home from a garage sale.

She had a lunch pail, a bell and a backyard classroom. She still has them.

“I had a desk, a lunch pail, and a bell, and those are the three things I still have that remind me of those times,” Binks said.

For Binks, now Superintendent of the Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District and a candidate for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, those childhood memories are more than sentimental. They are the beginning of a life shaped by education, service and a deep understanding that every child enters a classroom with different needs.

Binks was born in Missouri after her parents temporarily left California to seek specialized medical care for her older brother, who was born prematurely, had cerebral palsy and could not see, talk or walk. Her family missed California so much that they named her Cali.

“My brother didn’t look like  what people would consider “normal,” Binks said. “He couldn’t really open his eyes. His hands and legs were bent. And so when friends would come over, they were shocked at what he looked like.”

Those moments, she said, taught her compassion early.

“It would really hurt my heart because I didn’t see it that way,” Binks said. “I saw the things that he gave to our family.”

Her mother helped her learn how to explain her brother’s condition with kindness. Looking back, Binks said those experiences shaped the way she sees students, particularly those with disabilities.

“Everybody brings themselves in their perfect way,” Binks said. “But everybody doesn’t need the same thing.”

Binks’ path to education was not automatic. She was the first in her family to attend college, beginning at Mt. San Jacinto Community College before attending Riverside Community College and later earning a bachelor’s degree in human development from UC Riverside. She went on to earn a multiple subject credential and a master’s degree in special education from Azusa Pacific University.

She remembers arriving at college without a clear roadmap.

“I’m the first college-goer in my family,,” Binks said. “I went in without any prior knowledge of what college was going to be like.”

That experience, she said, shaped how she views school counselors, college readiness and the need to help students understand their options before they leave high school.

“School counselors are there to help support you for college and career readiness so that you’re able to go and begin to seek out what you might want to do for your future,” Binks said.

Her first step into the classroom came as a substitute teacher in Moreno Valley. Her first assignment was an Advanced Placement biology class at a high school. She admits she did not know everything she was walking into, but the experience taught her something that would stay with her for the rest of her career.

“It taught me the importance of connecting and relating tostudents,” Binks said.

Soon after, Fontana Unified School District hired her as an intern teacher for a first-grade classroom. She had 36 students and, midway through the day, learned that many did not speak English. Barbara Chavez, who later became a Fontana school board member,  entered the classroom as a bilingual aide, helping Cali connect with her students despite the language barrier.

“I had that support from her, and it really was magic,” Binks said. “We had the best time together, and we taught each other a lot.”

Binks spent 23 years in Fontana Unified, serving as a teacher, principal, director of categorical programs, assistant superintendent and superintendent. She later moved to Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified, where she has served for more than a decade.

She said Fontana gave her the foundation to understand classrooms, teachers, budgets and districtwide systems. Her work with categorical programs, which involve restricted state and federal dollars, gave her a deeper understanding of fiscal responsibility.

“We’re responsible, first, of course, to educate students and make sure that all of our schools are kept in good repair,” Binks said.

She said fiscal solvency is not just an accounting term. It affects whether students have materials, staff are paid, schools remain stable and public dollars are spent responsibly.

“It’s really important that we stay solvent because, number one, it’s our children that we’re taking care of,” Binks said. “Mismanagement of that money would not provide them the right opportunity.”

In Yucaipa-Calimesa, Binks said one of her proudest accomplishments was helping create the Family Learning Center, a space that began as a room filled with stored transcripts and became a place for parent classes, community learning and support for English learner families.

The center has since become a community learning hub, offering computer classes, parent workshops, advisory meetings and public programs for families and residents.

“What came out of that was hundreds and hundreds of parents and community members partnering with us,” Binks said. Binks describes her leadership style as collaborative, but said the heart of it is simpler than any formal leadership theory.

“Every single person that’s involved is a leader,” Binks said. “You are the parent, you’re a leader, you’re the grandma, you’re a leader, you’re the crossing guard, you’re a leader.”

Listening, she said, is central to the way she leads, especially during moments of disagreement. She pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic, when school decisions were often divisive and emotionally charged.

“I met with the people who were angry and the people who were happy and listened to them and allowed them to share what their thoughts were,” Binks said.

She said leadership also requires making difficult decisions and explaining them.

“You sometimes have to agree to disagree, but at the end of the day, you make the right ethical decision, the right moral decision, the right decision for students,” Binks said.

As a candidate for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, Binks said she is running because she believes her experience can help support the County’s nearly 400,000 students, schools districts, public charters, and diverse communities stretching from the desert and mountain communities to the West End and East Valley regions.

In addition to offering families quality preschool opportunities, the county superintendent’s office provides preschool through college and career readiness opportunities including direct services for some of the County’s most vulnerable students, including students in special education programs, foster youth, homeless youth and students in juvenile court schools. The office also supports districts with professional development and provides fiscal oversight.

Binks said she understands the role because she has worked alongside the county office as a district superintendent for years.

“I’m learning to listen differently because it is a different role,” Binks said. “But there are so many programs that the County offers that are amazing and they support the districts already. And so then it becomes, what can we do next?”

Her goals, she said, begin with listening before launching new initiatives.

That means meeting with students, parents, educators, community members, district leaders and elected officials across the County, she said.

Binks said she also wants to strengthen connections between education and the region’s economic future, ensuring students can find careers that allow them to stay in San Bernardino County, earn a living and raise families.

“Education is the foundation of all of that,” Binks said.

Still, Binks returns often to the personal. Her favorite childhood book, “When I Walked Through the Park,” reminds her to look around, not stay behind a desk. Her favorite leadership book, Simon Sinek’s “Leaders Eat Last,” reflects the servant leadership approach she says guides her work.

When asked why voters should support her, Binks pointed to her experience, her relationships across the County and her commitment to students.

“I think when you look at my years of experience and my heart for students and for the community and for people in general,” Binks said, “my perspective is broad, but it’s also intimate in the sense of knowing our county well.”

For Binks, the campaign is rooted in the same belief that first drew her to education: every student deserves to be seen, supported and prepared for a future they can believe in.

Paid for by Cali Binks for County Superintendent 2026