Five candidates vying for three available seats on PCSD 1 board of trustees

Posted 10/20/20

The following profiles are of candidates running for the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees. There are five candidates vying for three seats.

The profiles are in alphabetical …

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Five candidates vying for three available seats on PCSD 1 board of trustees

Posted

The following profiles are of candidates running for the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees. There are five candidates vying for three seats.

The profiles are in alphabetical order.

  

KIMBERLY CONDIE

Park County School District No. 1 Trustee Kimberly Condie was appointed to the board in the summer of 2016 to fill an unexpired term. That November, she was elected to the seat. Now she’s running for election for another four years.

When her children were younger, Condie said, she volunteered at their schools, and loved the school district for all the things it did for the students.

When the vacancy was posted in the newspaper in 2016, Condie’s husband encouraged her to seek the seat on the board. At his urging, she picked up an application packet and after reading it, decided to apply.

“I thought yes, this is something I’d like to be a part of,” Condie said. Her youngest child is a senior at PHS.

“I can’t say enough good about the teachers, administrators and leaders. It feels really good to be a part of something that is this good,” she said.

As a librarian, Condie has developed a lifetime love of reading and learning that has stood her in good stead on the board. She was surprised at how much reading there was as a board member.

“There is a lot to learn. I’m constantly learning,” she said. But that learning is personally satisfying to Condie, who said she did not join the board to advance an agenda.

“I’m just continuing to volunteer in a different way. I enjoy advocating for education,” she said. “I’d like to take what I’ve learned and continue to advocate for children in our district and our state.”

Some of the standout moments thus far in her board career revolve around safety, Condie said.

When the Wyoming Legislature determined the school boards could decide whether adult school staff could carry concealed weapons at school, Condie said she and the board listened, talked and heard what administrators and teachers said. With that input, the decision was made to develop a comprehensive safety and security plan, including adding another school resource officer.

“We looked at the issue more broadly and proactively,” Condie said, “and rather than having a knee jerk reaction we made a plan.”

The Powell police officers who serve as resource officers, she said, are truly a resource who interact with the students daily.

Condie also talked about developing the school’s reopening plan amid this year’s COVID-19 pandemic. She was very concerned that there should be a standard in place to decide when school should close. She voiced her opinion to the superintendent, Jay Curtis, who came up with a standard that was acceptable to the Park County Public Health officials, the school district and the community.

“This is a credit to Mr. Curtis’ diligence, but it was very important to me that we were proactive in addressing when the schools could stay open and when they would need to close,” Condie wrote in a follow-up email.

Another facet to the board seat is the time devoted to doing the job well.

“It is important to understand what’s going on in education and funding,” Condie said. To further that understanding, she has attended legislative committee meetings, where she has spoken on behalf of education.

“I put in the time,” Condie said. “It takes a lot of reading, but I enjoy being informed and I feel like it is time well spent.”

   

KIM DILLIVAN

Incumbent board member Kim Dillivan is seeking re-election to the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees. He was first elected in 2016 in his first endeavor at public service.

Dillivan said he wanted to give something back to the community where his children went to school. They graduated in 2020, but Dillivan, who taught in higher education, wants to continue to serve a community that values education the way Powell does.

“I know the rewards and challenges,” he said. “When you overcome the challenges, the rewards are immense.”

Part of the enjoyment Dillivan gets from serving on the board is seeing students overcome their own problems or challenges to succeed. He also likes being part of a board that ensures the educators and administrators have the tools they need to provide those solutions to students.

“I’ve seen members get on other boards for the wrong reasons,” Dillivan said. “They want to hire or fire someone and that usually doesn’t work. Our seven members work together extremely well. We flourish as a board because each person has unique strengths. We are a high functioning team in every sense of the word and that has been such a pleasant surprise.”

One of the accomplishments the board has achieved during Dillivan’s tenure was hiring Superintendent Jay Curtis. Dillivan said he was really proud of hiring Curtis and how the board worked as a team to select him.

“Mr. Curtis was an excellent selection,” he added.

Another top accomplishment in the last four years, Dillivan said, was all the area schools achieving PLC — Professional Learning Community — status. The board members went to a training about two years ago, he said and began work to adopt the program, which some Powell schools had been following for years. In PLC, teachers, para-educators and administrators work collaboratively to improve and empower student achievement.

The teams set goals, analyze test results and data, then help one another to elevate student success, Dillivan said.

“It is really neat to see all the schools are now PLC schools,” he added. “It is one of the things I am the most supportive of.”

Dillivan works in the Park County Planning and Zoning Office.

    

SHAREA LINDAE MOAN RENAUD

Sharea Lindae Moan Renaud is running for the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees.

Renaud has been a resident of Powell since 1994, bringing with her a variety of experiences from working in the service industry, sales, medical clinic administration, small business owner and consultant and a teacher of yoga and pilates. She is also working toward a degree in education at Northwest College.

Renaud said she has always been politically active and education is her passion. However, she dislikes that politics and elections have become about money.

“Every citizen has an obligation to serve at some level,” she said. It was suggested Renaud might enjoy sitting on the board of trustees, so she began attending meetings and later decided to run.

“I wanted to know how it [education] works on an administrative level to get a more realistic picture,” she said.

More than that, Renaud wants to work on building a sustainable community, one where the youth don’t have to leave to get a well-paying job, raise a family and prosper. In her opinion, too many students leave and don’t come back. That in turn leads to a dwindling population. She wants to build a foundation for them to stay.

“The spirit of Park County is the heartthrob of America, and I want to be some part of nurturing that,” Renaud said.

“When education is looked at as a utility, it is a misconception,”  she added. “They need skills, but they have to be able to reason and analyze. That’s what made this country great.”

Renaud doesn’t have an agenda, she said, and truly appreciates the teachers, administration and the current board.

“The teachers and administrators are remarkable. The board is great people with great insights. They all have different gifts and I don’t see myself as competing with them,” she said. “I learn from them as I go to the meetings.”

But Renaud also knows there are huge challenges facing the schools statewide.

“How do you cut millions from a budget? Recalibrations are looming and consolidations are death to small towns,” she said. Renaud has spent many hours watching the legislative process on public access television and feels from that experience she has something to offer to the district as it works to balance its budget. “I would be grateful for the opportunity and the experience” to serve on the board, she said.

     

TRACY MORRIS

Tracy Morris is seeking her second four-year term on the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees.

Morris decided to seek a seat on the board when she moved back to Wyoming to be closer to family. She has a degree in education and was previously a teacher.

“I wanted to be on the board to be part of my children’s education,” she said. One child is a 2019 graduate of Powell High School and one is still in the school system.

Some of her proudest accomplishments as a board member include hiring Jay Curtis, the current superintendent, and helping come up with a safety plan for the schools in the COVID pandemic. Another is the Professional Learning Community for teacher planning that has been adopted at the high school.

Morris said some of the challenges for her were learning the ins and outs of budgeting and how much there was to running a school district. She credited the accounting officers for being “phenomenal in explaining budgeting to the board.”

“Now I understand what it means to be a school board member,” Morris said. “We have a great team and we’re not starting at ground zero. People can look to us for how school boards run.”

Morris said she, like other candidates, isn’t doing much campaigning, even though the election is only three weeks away.

“I trust the voters. They know who I am and what I stand for. They know what’s best for the board,” she said.

Morris said one thing she didn’t know before taking her seat on the board was the amount of time involved in being an active board member. In addition to the reading required, there are tremendous training elements involved, too.

“We have trainings out of town and out of state,” she said. “You have to realize how much there is to it. Make sure you know what’s expected then do what’s in your heart. This community wants what is best for the kids and you have the safety and welfare of the staff and students as your goal.”

    

LAURA RILEY

Laura Riley is seeking her first term on the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees. But she is no stranger to the schools, having been a building secretary at Westside Elementary School for 16 years. Riley also worked as a substitute for a year and a half and was an office assistant at Northwest College.

“I have quite a bit of knowledge as far as the education system in town goes,” Riley said. “I think Park 1 has excellent schools and does an excellent job with the students. But I see huge challenges coming through the Legislature,” she added.

“I think I understand those challenges both for the district and for the state and I believe I could work with the administration and staff and existing board to meet those challenges,” she said.

Riley said she has no agenda for sitting on the board, but believes she has something to offer in her understanding of block grant funding.

“I have followed the Legislature for the past few years and need to continue to follow it to see what the plan is as far as budget cuts for both public education and higher education,” Riley said.

Going forward, Riley would like to see the district work even more closely with Northwest College as it struggles with enrollment and perhaps assist with resources to help that situation.

Riley has four children who went through the district and she married a professor at Northwest College, which was what brought her to Powell. Her husband has since passed away, and Riley is ready to reinvolve herself in education.

“I’m running because I believe it is people’s civic duty to serve when they have the time. Being retired, now I have the time,” she said.

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