Chelsea Bonini is a passionate advocate for education, housing, mental health awareness, disability rights and inclusive communities. Chelsea was a kindergarten and first grade teacher in the mid-90’s in the South San Francisco Unified School District and began practicing law in 2001. She now works both in-house and as outside general counsel with her firm, Kiski Law P.C., which she founded in 2010. Chelsea earned her dual B.S. in Elementary Education & Psychology from Russell Sage College in 1994, her J.D. from U.C. Hastings College of the Law in 2001, where she was elected to serve as Editor in Chief of her law journal, and she was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2001.
Chelsea served as a School Board Trustee for the San Mateo-Foster City School District from 2013-2017. She ran a close race for City Council in San Mateo in 2017, but was not successful.
She was then appointed by the San Mateo County Board of Education to serve on the Personnel Commission in 2018, where she currently serves as Chair and also serves on the Board of the California School Personnel Commissioner’s Association for Northern California.
In 2018, Chelsea co-founded snkids.org, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation dedicated to achieving equality for all children and adults with disabilities by and through trainings and tools to increase participation at all levels of democracy, including elected roles, to promote advocacy for shared knowledge of rights & responsibilities, equal systems of opportunity and justice, high expectations & accountability for success, and inclusionary communities. Snkids.org is changing its name to “Not Without Us” in 2020 to emphasize its goal of ensuring that persons with disabilities and their allies have seats at the tables where decisions are made.
Chelsea was appointed to serve on the San Mateo County Commission on Disabilities in 2019, where she currently serves as Chair of the Youth & Family Committee, and she is also an active member of the Disabilities Caucus of the California Democratic Party. Chelsea has been an elected Delegate to the California Democratic Party for Assembly District 22 since 2015, as the elected AD22 Executive Board Representative since 2017, most recently reelected to another term for both positions in 2019 to serve through 2020.
Chelsea has also served on the Executive Board and as Secretary of the Peninsula Democratic Coalition, the largest and oldest Democratic Club in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, since 2018, and she was appointed as a District 2 Alternate for the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee in 2019, where she also serves as the Committee’s Clubs Liaison and as a member of the Bylaws Committee.
Chelsea grew up in Tahoe and San Francisco, and now lives in San Mateo with her husband and two sons (in middle & high school). She spends a lot of time watching her boys play basketball and baseball, and she has and continues to serve in a number of community leadership and volunteer capacities. Chelsea is also currently a candidate for the San Mateo County Board of Education, as the Board’s Area 4 Trustee. Her campaign is centered upon the notion that community allies and collaborative practices are essential components of school success – that we are Much Better Together. Chelsea hopes to win this seat on the Board of Education in the upcoming November 2020 Countywide election, challenging a longtime incumbent.
