In the 12 months since she won election to the San Ysidro School Board, Trustee Kenia Peraza has positioned herself as a fierce advocate for transparency and disclosure.
She advocated for security cameras on school campuses and recently called on Superintendent Gina Potter to resign for, according to Peraza, failing to disclose to board members full details about allegations of sexual abuse by a district teacher. She is now running to represent District 8 on the San Diego City Council.
But during Peraza’s outspoken – and, critics say, divisive – tenure on the board, she has not disclosed a significant fact about herself.
She is currently wanted for arrest, stemming from a failure to comply with court orders following a 2021 conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol.
A judge issued a bench warrant for Peraza in October 2022 after she failed to complete a court-ordered education program as part of her sentence for driving home drunk one evening in August 2020. A register of warrants on the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office website shows the warrant is still active.
Asked about the warrant on Tuesday, Peraza expressed surprise and said she thought she had complied with all legal requirements stemming from the 2021 conviction.
“This warrant is actually news to me as well,” she said. “I didn’t even know until now…I talked to my lawyer who I had back in 2022 and said, ‘Hey, what happened?’ And we’re taking things in place, and we have a court date set for next week and we’ll get this warrant cleared and handled.”
Peraza said the DUI stemmed from an evening in 2020 when she was driving home from a family party in Tijuana and was asked by an agent at the San Ysidro border crossing whether she had been drinking alcohol.
Peraza said she had “a few glasses of wine” at the party. “To be honest, they were not little,” she said.
“They asked me if I had a drink and I said yes,” Peraza said. “I’m very bad with lying.”
A police officer arrested Peraza and she pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. A judge sentenced her to probation, including completion of two online DUI-related education classes.
Peraza said she completed one of the classes and signed up for the second but “they never scheduled it for me, and I didn’t learn about it until just now.”
Peraza said she had signed up to complete the one-day online class this week, and her lawyer was scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 10 to present proof she had completed the class.
“We’ll get this warrant cleared and handled,” she said.
Asked why she had not disclosed the DUI arrest during her November 2024 campaign, which featured calls for greater transparency in the district, Peraza said the issue “didn’t cross my mind [because] I didn’t think it was relevant back then.”
However, Peraza said the arrest is “not something I’m afraid to disclose or talk about [and] it would probably [have been] a good idea to talk about it before.”
Peraza said she did speak publicly about her arrest more recently while kicking off her City Council campaign at a local Republican caucus meeting.
“They took it very well,” she said of Republicans at the meeting. “I wanted to tell them that I have also made mistakes, and I had a DUI and that’s something that I will never do again of course…They told me everyone makes mistakes and it was very courageous of myself to talk about it.”
Peraza said she believed it was no coincidence that news of her five-year-old DUI had surfaced now. She said leaders of the district’s teachers union, along with district administrators and several fellow school board trustees, all oppose her because of her outspoken stances on school safety and district accountability.
“I have my reasons to believe that the teachers union leaders and a few of my fellow board members are behind this,” she said of public disclosure of her legal difficulties.
Peraza pointed to a recent post circulating on social media that features a photograph of her face superimposed on a mock wanted poster with the words: “Why is no one talking about toxic board member Kenia Peraza’s DUI, failure to comply with legal consequences and outstanding bench warrant?”
An anonymous tipster also recently mailed copies of court documents related to Peraza’s DUI to several news media organizations and members of the San Ysidro School Board – including Peraza herself.
In fact, Peraza said, it was opening the anonymous mailing with the court documents that alerted her to the unresolved legal fallout from her DUI.
“I didn’t have a clue I had a warrant until now,” she said.
A letter accompanying the court documents is signed, “The majority of San Ysidro Parents.”
Voice of San Diego contacted parents connected to the school district who oppose Peraza. None said they had any knowledge of the anonymous mailing.
A school district spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. Superintendent Gina Potter is on medical leave for undisclosed reasons and was unavailable for comment.
Antonio Martinez, a San Ysidro School Board trustee who frequently opposes Peraza and is running against her for San Diego City Council, also declined to comment.
Zenaida Rosario, another opponent of Peraza on the board, declined to comment on the specifics of Peraza’s legal situation but did send a statement.
“As a 40-year veteran educator for the San Ysidro School District, I’m passionate about keeping our district focused on our greatest treasure, our students,” Rosario said in her statement. “In their best interest, I will continue to dedicate my service to make sure our schools, staff, support staff and dedicated administrators stay focused and do right by the voters who put their trust in us to ensure that we can provide the best education to the children of San Ysidro.”
Roxane Palestino, a San Ysidro parent who is part of a group of parents allied with Peraza, said she and other like-minded parents will continue to support Peraza because “she’s bringing things into the light [in the district and] doing what board members should be doing.”
Palestino said she also believes Peraza’s opponents in the district dug up and publicized the arrest warrant information.
“They’re trying to find things on Kenia because they’re feeling the pressure,” Palestino said. “[Kenia] is not perfect but she’s human and she’s there for the right reasons. We need her there on the board.”
Peraza said she expects to put her legal troubles behind her soon and continue advocating on the school board.
“I feel confident I’ll get this resolved next week,” she said of the bench warrant. “It’s a continual battle over here [on the school board] because they don’t want to make things right.”