This year, the school board seat covering most of North Long Beach and Bixby Knolls is wide open, with no incumbent seeking reelection. That means three newcomers—Nubia Flores, Sharifa Batts and Maria Isabel López—are in the race for the Long Beach Unified School District’s Board of Trustees position representing Area 1.

On Monday, May 9, Flores and Batts answered questions from the Long Beach Post in the fourth of our debates leading up to the June 7 primary. To see more from the candidates and learn about López’s positions, check out or Compare Your Candidates tool.

And for more coverage in all our local elections, be sure to visit lbpost.com/elections.

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.