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Personal (please list occupation, education and family):
My husband and I moved to Lynd about 5 years ago, we have two children (5 year old and 3 year old), 6 chickens, and one dog. I have a doctorate of pharmacy degree from South Dakota State University and have been practicing as a pharmacist for about 8 years now.
Why am I running for a school board seat?
I felt like there wasn’t a lot of communication from the board to parents about the choices that were being made and why those choices were the best for our children. I felt like our voices as parents were either being ignored or being quickly dismissed when concerns were brought up to the board. I decided I couldn’t be mad about this if I wasn’t willing to try to step up and help fix the issues.
What are the major issues facing the District?
I believe that the lack of funding due to lower enrollment numbers is causing a lot of issues within our district. If I recall correctly, about 70% of the students in the Lynd school system are open enrolled. We have to have families choose to enroll in our school in order for us to continue to operate, and without communication and community outreach that is going to be incredibly difficult.
What are the areas of concern regarding student achievement in the district?
According to the Minnesota report card, our school students are not meeting the standards in math over the last few years. I believe that kids learn best with hands on experience, and I believe that if we tie in more real world experiences that our students would be more likely to meet those standards. I would love to see the school board help move our district in this direction and away from the over abundance of technology used in many classrooms in the area.
Do you have specific suggestions for improvement?
I would like to see a school board newsletter be created and sent out to the community after each board meeting to give everyone a glimpse of the discussions that take place at school board meetings. Right now, it is very difficult as a parent to know what discussions take place at the meeting if you aren’t able to attend in person, and that makes it difficult to understand the choices the board makes.
I would also like to see the school board work with the community to bring in additional revenue in ways that can help the community as well. For example, if the community and school worked together to build a greenhouse the school would be able to potentially sell produce for a small profit while the community would be able to have local fresh produce. The school could also potentially work that entire process into the curriculum, leading to further hands on learning which could lead to an increase in test scores as well as new family enrollment.