GPISD Board Trustee David Espinosa Admits "The Whole Reason I Ran Against Jeff Was To Get Him Out of Office"
In a post on his GPISD Trustee Facebook page, David Espinosa brags about running against former Grand Prairie City Councilman Jeff Copeland to "Strategically Get Him Out"
Earlier today, the Faces of Grand Prairie wrote an article titled “Political Intimidation in Grand Prairie Elections, Part Two,” telling the story behind the May 2023 GPISD School Board and City Council Elections. In our story we reported the story of Dr. Wendy Nguyen-Anaya, who filed to run for GPISD School Board:
“According to his video, after Dr. Nguyen-Anaya (who was pregnant at the time) had filed to run, she was approached for a meeting with Mr. Lopez and Mr. Del Bosque, in which the two men, acting in their capacity as city councilmen, convinced her not to run against Mr. Parra and instead, pressured her to run for the at-large seat that was held by Jeff Copeland at the time. They informed her that they would pay for any costs associated with filing to remove herself from the school board race.”
“Dr. Nguyen-Anaya also shared with me that the plan in the 2023 election was to split the vote in Bessye Adam’s favor, to get Jeff Copeland unseated (to my knowledge, Ms. Adams was ignorant of this plan and had nothing to do with these schemes).”
“The New American PAC has sent divisive mailers and text messages to Grand Prairie voters in multiple election cycles for different candidates, most recently in the May 2025 school board election of Veronica Lopez and incumbent Emily Liles, which was the subject of our article titled Mudslinging Tactics in Grand Prairie School Board Elections. The mailers are not always negative, as was the case when the PAC sent out mailers to voters in the 2023 election cycle, grouping Gloria Carrillo and Bryan Parra (running for school board), and David Espinosa (running for city council) on one mailer. David Espinosa was serving as a Board Trustee at the time, but decided to run for city council in this election….the same race Dr. Wendy Nguyen-Anaya was coerced into running for as well.”
We now know why David Espinosa ran in that race, after he shared a post on his official GPISD Trustee Facebook page earlier this evening, admitting “The whole reason I ran against Jeff is to get him out of office, which I strategically got him out,” ending with a strong arm emoji, brown heart emoji and 100 emoji, right before he accuses Jeff of participating in a “thuggish way of doing politics.” In the same post, he makes unsubstantiated and unproven accusations regarding a private citizen engaging in bribery.
In a series of comments on the post, disgraced former GPISD Superintendent Jorge Arredando apparently liked what Mr. Espinosa had to say.
In a May 23, 2025 article titled “Public Documents Released on Dr. Jorge Arredondo's Termination,” we reported David Espinosa’s response to Dr. Arredondo’s comments to WFAA, again posted to his official GPISD Trustee Facebook page. He said:
“Moving forward, it is imperative that all trustees commit to fulfilling our legal and ethical responsibilities by participating in board governance training and adhering to Effective School Board Governance standards as outlined by state law and the EISO (Enhancing Instructional and Student Outcomes) framework.”
Mr. Espinosa is referring to the TEA’s Framework for School Board Development. One of the points in the framework states: “The Board Recognizes each individual trustee’s duty as a trustee and fiduciary for the entire district.”
To the GPISD Board of Trustees: what are the “legal and ethical responsibilities” of trustees when using their official ISD social media account? Are there consequences for a trustee who admits to intentionally interfering with a city council election on their ISD social media account? Does Mr. Espinosa even understand that he’s acting as a “trustee and fiduciary for the entire district” when he posts on social media? It is not clear whether Mr. Espinosa read our article before posting, or whether Mr. Espinosa realizes that he even did anything controversial. Why would anyone admit this willingly, and on their official ISD page, no less? The last paragraph of our article begins: “Behavior shows these elected officials appear less and less concerned about whether the rules of behavior and engagement for everyone else, applies to them.”
Whether or not the board can bring any consequences upon Mr. Espinosa for his impulsive and damaging public behavior remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure…with every post like this, not only is Mr. Espinosa embarrassing himself, he’s embarrassing the entire Board of Trustees and the Grand Prairie ISD as well.