I got involved in the board because I've been involved in local politics I'm passionate about policy and what local government and people working together can do to shape their community.

I'm very passionate about what my family has received from the district and trying to give that back and pay it forward.

I really ran because I want to keep what minetonka does so well and make sure that my second graders friends and he have the same opportunities all the way through high school that our current students do.

The school board is the governance of the district so we set the policies we set the goals for the district but we only have one employee and it's this guy superintendent Mr David law. So we are in charge of hiring the superintendent and once the superintendent is in place he is in charge of all the day-to-day operations.

A lot of our work is really the vast majority of our work is sort of dictated the timeline is dictated for us the state the Department of Education has a lot of requirements be it when we need to pass a budget or set our goals in policies Implement a calendar things like that.

The goals are kind of an always evolving process so we don't start from scratch each year we kind of take the previous version of the goals and we get as much feedback as we can so we do surveys for the community and students and staff.

The goals are there in place to ensure that we're all striving to be the best that we can be and supporting those goals the one in particular is the excellence and well-being and connection and belonging that I feel very passionate about.

A budget in the way a district or any institution spends money is a reflection of its values and so it's important to have a group of dedicated smart people looking at the budget through the lens of our goals so that we make sure our dollars are working to achieve what we want this District to be.

I'm on the teaching and learning committee which is totally in my wheelhouse as a former teacher so it's kind of fun because I get to step into a little bit of both sides of that conversation.

School Finance is complex and we're sort of in a situation not of our own making and we're not by any means alone in the Metro or the state. Districts especially in the Metro but Statewide are facing budget challenges some of them in the tens of millions of dollars and a lot of that has to do with the fact that as supportive as our legislature is of public education as much as it values it a lot of times the funding dedicated by our legislature to education just doesn't keep pace with inflation.

I really enjoy and embrace going into the schools and the special recognitions that have been going on for May going to the plays um seeing the dedication that the teachers really have to ensure the Excellence for their students is just been very inspiring.

It's kind of like it's not an always on position but it kind of is you kind of want to have your personal door open to anybody in the community so they can reach out to you and you can grab a coffee or sit down with somebody and hear about what's on their mind.

As the chair there's just the additional little pieces of like when emails come into the board I work to create a response whether it's doing some research on it or running it by superintendent law um just to make sure that my responses on behalf of the board because I am representing all seven members of the board and not just myself are appropriate to what that person is reaching out about.

I'm excited with some of the board work that we've started that's going to continue into next year like the facilities task force and the nutrition advisory committee um both of those things were very reflective of things that we heard from the community and from our staff.