Four Weeks In: Listening, Learning, and Leading Together
Today marks four weeks since I filed my candidacy for Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools school board. To mark the occasion, I want to share a few thoughts on my vision for our students, the district, and our community.
Before I do that, I have to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has asked a question, made a donation, offered support, or shared something on social media. The response has honestly been overwhelming (in a good way) and I am still trying to comprehend all of it. I wish I could thank each and every one of you individually. I do not know if you will ever understand how truly grateful I am for the trust you have placed in me.
Though the last few weeks have been incredible, there have been some tough questions and comments thrown my way. This is entirely reasonable! As someone who—up until this point—has been relatively unknown, many of you are still trying to understand who I am and what my values are. While I’ll do my best to answer every question that comes my way, there are a few I’d like to answer here.
A little of the feedback has been focused on my messaging, suggesting that it is “surface level” or “lacking substance”. If I am being 100% honest, I can’t argue with those takes. On the one hand, my team and I made a deliberate choice to center on introducing myself. I suppose we could have copy/pasted talking points from previous candidates, but we didn’t think that was very authentic. I am not interested in regurgitating material from other school board campaigns around the country. I am interested in what is going on right here, in our community.
Which leads me to my second point. I am certainly not naive enough to believe I have all the answers. These are complicated issues and anyone who says it is an easy fix is either lying to you, or terribly misinformed. If you find that my website or social posts are lacking substance, I would argue the reason is because I am still listening and learning. As I talk with educators, district parents and community members, I hope to be far better equipped to answer questions such as:
• “How would you fix ______ situation?”
• “What would you do differently?”
• “What makes you qualified for this position?”
Although, I do believe I can answer that last one. I have worked for a 75 year old non-profit for nearly my entire career. What was originally supposed to be a four month internship has turned into an executive leadership position as the organization’s Chief Human Resources Officer. Even in this setting, I don’t have all the answers. More importantly, I never pretend to have all the answers. Most importantly, I am not responsible for finding all of the answers.
Whether it is dealing with our $10 million dollar operating budget, creating and implementing a strategic plan, overseeing several departments and nearly 200 employees in all; not all of it depends on me.
I am part of a team. We work together. We have discussions and offer suggestions. We compromise. We acknowledge and take responsibility for our mistakes. We support each other through all of the wins and losses. When we have setbacks, we learn from them and try to do better the next time.
Going forward, I’ll do my best to share more details about what I see as priorities and how I would approach different issues. If you have questions, I’ll encourage you to do what I tell everyone: ask openly, and I’ll do my best to respond—whether it’s a direct answer or additional context.
Reach out to me. I want to hear from you. I will make the time and have a conversation with you. You may not agree with my positions, or the direction I think we should go, but I am willing to listen. Don’t be shocked, but I might even change my mind! Should I be fortunate enough to be elected, I’ll do my best to contribute to finding solutions. If I am not elected, I will still be there at every school board meeting, advocating for our students and educators.