“Get him Alana!” a peer shouts out of frame as team captain and goalie Alana Arroyo faces the opposing team’s striker during a penalty kick at the 2023 United States Drone Soccer National Championship.
A 50-second YouTube clip captures the pivotal moment Arroyo, a sophomore at the time, swiftly blocks the opposite team’s drone from making a goal, winning the championship for Sato Academy of Math & Science. Arroyo jumps in the air, a celebratory scream escapes her and her teammates rush to envelop her, also screaming and beaming with joy.
SATO’s drone soccer team coach Albert Gallo said this moment encapsulates Arroyo’s dedication, skill and leadership. These qualities are why he was not surprised when Arroyo, now a senior, was appointed as Long Beach Unified’s newest student board member in September.
“I’ve seen a couple of the school board meetings already and she just looks very comfortable there, she looks like it’s something natural for her,” Gallo said.
For Arroyo, however, the experience still feels surreal. The plaque displaying her name — a gesture she wasn’t expecting – made her feel official.
“It is a pretty big responsibility because I’m the voice of all the students in the district, which is really weird to think about,” Arroyo said.
As student board member, Arroyo can cast a preferential vote that, while not counting toward the official vote on an item, provides the board with a student perspective. She will also be attending community and school events alongside board members throughout her year-long term.
“There’s some student voices in different groups that are more prominent than others, whether they’re doing advocacy work or are part of other groups, and I know there’s a lot of voices of the students who aren’t heard because they are not as involved or don’t know how to get their opinions out there,” Arroyo said, adding that her focus will be to ensure these less-represented students are also heard.
Arroyo was chosen among a pool of 34 applicants, according to Board President Diana Craighead, who was most impressed by Arroyo’s maturity in the way she balances her academic life and her social-emotional wellbeing.
“I think that’s kind of tough for a lot of our students, especially at our smaller thematic high schools [where] there’s so much pressure on these kids to perform,” Craighead said. “So for her to be aware that she needs to take a step back every now and then and make sure that she’s taking care of herself, I think that’s a very good quality to have.”
That balance is crucial to Arroyo, who is entrenched in her school and community through various programs. Apart from Drone Soccer, she is a part of the automotive club and is serving as Associated Student Body secretary. She is also involved in other service clubs like the National Honor Society and the California Scholarship Federation.
Outside of school, Arroyo has been involved with humanitarian organizations like Habitat for Humanity. She was unable to attend the board meeting announcing the five finalists for student board member because she was volunteering in Ecuador.
Because of her skills and work ethic, Gallo hired Arroyo to teach engineering to younger students through after-school and summer programs as part of his and his wife’s business, California Drone Sports.
“That’s how much we trust and respect her,” said Gallo. “She’s our go-to person to do those things because she’s comfortable doing it and she’s done it a lot.”
Arroyo’s passion for engineering stems from being surrounded by science all her life. She attended a magnet elementary school outside of LBUSD where she regularly participated in science fairs and grew up doing hands-on work with her parents, who are on-site-apartment managers. Arroyo fondly recalls being her dad’s handyman assistant and helping him build and fix things.
“With engineering I can choose what I want to build and design and create, that just really drew my attention, and I grew in love with that,” Arroyo said.
She’s planning to major in mechanical engineering in college before going into aerospace engineering. Arroyo said she has been fascinated by space since she was a child and intrigued by rockets.
“Rocketry is not that popular, it’s something that we really only think of NASA doing on the big scale,” said Arroyo, who built a small rocket her freshman year. “But for me, being able to do that, just even on this small scale, I just loved it, and it’s kept me going.”
Whether it’s building a rocket or flying a drone, these experiences have taught Arroyo to be extremely detail-oriented. So while being a student board member may not be rocket science, Arroyo brings the same mindset to her new role.
“Being in these STEM and these engineering settings got me to pay attention to detail andf the processes of going through and creating something or evaluating something,” Arroyo said. “As a student board member, it will help me to really pay attention to the details of the work that I’m doing with the students in the community, and to set up systems to properly gather this student perspective and present it.”
