Quick Take
Pajaro Valley Unified School District Superintendent Heather Contreras was hired to lead San Luis Coastal Unified School District on Tuesday night; Contreras will remain with PVUSD through the end of this school year.
The San Luis Coastal Unified School District governing board hired Pajaro Valley Unified School District Superintendent Heather Contreras to be its next leader during its Tuesday evening board meeting.
Contreras came to PVUSD in May 2024, following interim Superintendent Murry Schekman and the departure of former Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez.
In a statement Wednesday morning to PVUSD families, Contreras said she’ll remain with the district through the end of the school year. Her contract will officially begin with the San Luis school district on July 1.
“Serving the students, families, and staff of Pajaro Valley has been one of the great privileges of my career,” she said. “This is a community with deep roots, extraordinary resilience, and a real commitment to its children. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together, especially the rise of test scores for students, because as a school district our focus should be our students.”
San Luis officials said in a statement this week that they selected Contreras after a “comprehensive search that included input from staff, parents, students, and community members.”
The district’s search began after its current Superintendent Eric Prater announced his intention to retire.
When Contreras joined the district in spring 2024, she encountered a district facing the fallout of years of significant declining enrollment, the drying out of COVID-era federal funding, and a budget crisis, as well as community uproar over the district’s handling of a contract with an ethnic studies consultant that helped lead to turnover on the board of trustees.
To address the budget losses due to declining enrollment and the loss of COVID funding, Contreras led the district’s efforts to implement millions of dollars in budget cuts. In the process, however, the district faced immense pushback from dozens of community members and its labor partners. After the school board failed to approve layoffs in early 2025, the chief business officer at the time, Jenny Im, resigned.
Still, Contreras said repeatedly at school board meetings her focus was on student success. She hired organizations like Swun Math, which helps teachers develop math lessons to better engage students and improve scores.
From 2024 to 2025, PVUSD students improved their math scores by 3.3 points, from 101.2 points below the standard, to 97.9 points below the standard. The scoring system measures whether students have the knowledge and skills to be on track for college and career readiness.
English learner progress and English language arts scores similarly increased by 3 points from 2024 to 2025, the latest year for which scores are available.
In a statement, PUVSD governing board president Carol Turley congratulated Contreras and thanked her for her time at the district.
“Her decision to serve through the end of the school year gives our district the time and stability to conduct a thoughtful, inclusive search for our next superintendent,” she said. “We’re grateful for her continued leadership as we plan for the future.”
The governing board will start searching for the district’s new superintendent in the coming weeks.
This is a developing story and more information will be added.
