The day Kim Ross was elected to the Eden Prairie School Board in 2007 was the beginning of a new chapter in her life, in more ways than one.
“I got offered my job and won the election on the same day,” she recalled.
Ross’s time on the board coincided with one of the district’s most contentious periods, which culminated in the decision to change the elementary schools to a K-6 configuration and redraw the boundary map.
This November she was not re-elected to the board. Ross does not feel the election results were a form of backlash from her sup-port of the boundary decision.
“The voters spoke and they have the right to do that,” she said.
She knew it would be challenging: “I personally became associated with the change,” since she was chair in 2010, when a majority of the board (members Chuck Mueller, Suzanne Kutina, Carol Bomben and Ross) voted to support the boundary change.
She stands by that decision, which went into effect this year, with approximately 1,000 students moving to different elementary schools and included rebalancing the number of low-income students around the district. When asked what she is most proud of, Ross cites that K-6 change that will benefit all kids in the long run, she said.
“When I got the results of the election, I was disappointed for about 20 minutes and then, immediately, I turned my thought process towards, ‘OK, what other ways can I serve?’
“There are lots of ways to serve.”
NEXT?
Ross was chair of the governance committee and chair of the board during, “let’s just say, some difficult times,” noted Board member John Estall, during the last Eden Prairie School Board meeting.
Ross has “demonstrated unwavering commitment and passion to serving all students in the district,” said Estall.
She always approaches from the perspective of what’s best for all students, he said.
“Kim has had the courage to stand up for what she believes is fair and right for all kids and the board is very grateful to her for doing that.”
Ross, who has a background in marketing, has volunteered to facilitate future board workshops.
“Kim also has the talent to unscramble complicated conversations in clear and concise, succinct motions,” noted Estall.
“It gets us moving along and we’ll miss that.”
Ross first got involved in the district through work on a 2004 referendum campaign.
“There may be a full circle opportunity here,” said Ross because, if the board chooses to run a referendum in 2012, “I would look forward to helping with that effort as well.”
With both Ross and Bomben having left the board (new members Karla Bratrud, Dave Espe and incumbents John Estall and Holly Parker were elected), there may be some catch-up period as the board continues to navigate its governance policy, a vast tome that guides how the board sets policy and subsequently, how the district administration executes those directives.
Board governances is an evolving model and it should continue to evolve, said Ross.
When asked for an example of how that model of governance works, Ross said that it has worked very well in monitoring student results. For most school boards, she said, test scores will come out, and the board may talk about it once a year, but through the governance policy, the board pays attention to results beyond yearly test scores, instead focusing on student progress throughout the year and how they move through the system, said Ross.
“Working against a model like that gets a board asking questions that a lot of boards don’t ask,” she said.
When asked if there’s anything she would have done differently, Ross said she would have liked to see more board involvement in some of the committees that shaped the boundary change decision.
“To be able to speak to that from personal experience,” instead of secondhand, “I think would have been very helpful,” she said about committee involvement. As an example, Ross said she would liken it to the process they used to hire the new communication director. In that case, three board members were involved in that process.
Ross is not interested in running for office in other areas.
“At this point I can be more effective advocating in other ways,” she said.
Her time with the board has been an “amazing experience,” that embodied three things that energized her, she said. One is service to the community in general; two, is learning new things all the time and three is working on behalf of kids, she said.
“It doesn’t get much better than that.”