I want to thank all of the voters in the Northfield school district who voted last Tuesday to give me a seat on the Northfield school board. It is a privilege to have this opportunity to serve the Northfield community. I also want to thank the other candidates for their willingness to serve, and for sharing their vision and enthusiasm for the Northfield schools during the campaign. Finally, I want to thank the Mayor’s Youth Council, Northfield Patch, the Northfield News, and Northfield.org for making information about the candidates available to local voters.
At their meeting on Tuesday, November 13, the current school board will meet to certify the results of the election. My term on the school board officially begins with the meeting of January 14, 2013, but in the next two months I’ll be working hard to bring myself up to speed so I can hit the ground running in January. Last week, I met with the president of the Northfield Education Association to learn more about the relationship between the school board and the teachers, as well as to get a teacher’s perspective on issues such as the integration of iPads in the classroom and the effectiveness of PLCs (Professional Learning Communities). I also met briefly with the high school ESL teacher, and discussed a possible opportunity to volunteer in her classroom. Since my older son started kindergarten at Longfellow in the fall of 1996, my experience of the school has been focused through the experience of my own children. Being on the school board will give me an opportunity to stay connected with what’s actually going on in classrooms around the district, while at the same time allowing me to connect to the experience of a more diverse group of students, teachers, and parents.
Later this week, I’ll be meeting with Matt Hillmann, the district’s director of technology, to get more information about the plan to integrate iPads into the classrooms. I’ll also be having my first meeting with Superintendent Chris Richardson. Before January 14, there will also be a more extensive orientation meeting with Superintendent Richardson and current board chair Ellen Iverson. And on January 16, I’ll be spending an entire day in Minnneapolis at a Minnesota School Boards Association training session for newly-elected board members, where I’ll learn more about school finance, local levies, and collective bargaining.
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As an elected member of the school board, I want to be as accessible as possible. I will try to blog regularly about issues facing the Northfield schools, and as soon as I have a school district email address, I’ll make that available for anyone who wants to contact me. As one of seven school board members, I have no individual authority, and can’t claim that on my own I'll be able to make all of the changes in the schools that people might want. But I can promise to listen, to communicate, to research issues thoroughly and from all sides, and to be a strong and consistent advocate for what is best for our schools.
As a parent, I’ve been fortunate that my sons were able to attend school—from the oldest’s first day of kindergarten in 1996 to the youngest’s graduation from high school in 2012—in a community where education is so highly valued and so generously supported. I look forward to serving that community over the next four years.
