By SALINA POST
During the month of Oct. the Salina Post will be publishing a series of profiles introducing the community to the six Salina City Commission candidates and school board member candidates for USD 306, USD 305, and USD 307.
The Salina Post sent questionnaires to the candidates asking for biographical information, initiatives they hope to champion as a board member, and why they chose to run for school board.
The general election will be Nov. 7. The deadline to register for the 2023 Election is Oct. 17 before 8 p.m.
If you live outside of Saline County check with your local elections officer for election deadlines.
Ann Zimmerman
What is your Age?
66
What is your profession?
I am a lawyer and mediator, also a singer-songwriter and a horse boarding stable owner.
Are you an incumbent?
Yes
Give a brief bio on yourself in 100 words or less:
I grew up in Salina, went to Heusner and South, then to K-State for a degree in Elementary Education. Later, I went to Harvard for a law degree, then came back to Kansas. For the past 23 years, I’ve been back in Salina. As a mediator, I get people together on different sides of an issue and help them reach agreement. As a singer-songwriter I sing about 100 gigs a year, including many in Salina schools through Salina Arts & Humanities. I’ve been on the Salina school board for two terms. My husband and I run a horse boarding stable.
As a school board member what specific initiatives or policies would you prioritize in order to improve educational outcomes and support the overall well-being of public school students in our community?
In line with our strategic plan, I want to ensure that our students are excellent communicators and critical thinkers and have good social-emotional skills. If they have these skills, they will be on their way to a successful adulthood. To get there, they need great teachers (which we have), good facilities (which we have), and an all-around enriching school experience (which we are always working to improve). I want us to be sure that even kids who don’t have every advantage at home come away with these critical skills. This means they go to school every possible day, overcoming our significant challenge of chronic absenteeism. We are currently working on all these things.
In recent years many books have been removed from the shelves of public libraries due to their alleged inappropriate content. As a school board member where do you stand on this issue?
We have a long-standing policy to respond to book challenges. We went through this policy in the past couple of years when three community members, none of whom had children in our schools and none of whom had read the book, objected to a book that is in our high school libraries, All Boys Aren’t Blue. As directed by the policy, there were three levels of appeal. At each of the first two levels, different teachers, administrators, and community members read the book and decided it had value and should stay. At the last level of appeal, the whole school board read the book and decided it had value and should stay. I am glad so many people got to read the book. I am sorry the objectors never read it. Children are not harmed by reading books – they are enriched.
Parental engagement and community involvement are crucial for the success of any school district. What strategies would you implement to increase collaboration between parents, citizens, and educators?
Our schools are trying and trying to get more parents involved in their children’s education. Each year, there are at 4 days just for parents to come to the school to meet with the teachers. All year, the parents have access to Skyward, the online record of their children’s educational progress. On any day, a parent can call or email their child’s teacher(s) through the school websites, and teachers work hard to answer. Parents may visit their children in school. In our recent work to lower chronic absenteeism, school staff have been calling homes when the children are absent to see if help is needed to get them to school. Each school has a site council - including parents, teachers and community members - which meets regularly to find ways to improve the school and keep communication open between school and home. If parents are interested in involvement, there are many, many ways for them to do that. Just in the past year, we have made major efforts to ensure that school is a welcoming place for families as well as for students and staff.
Please explain why you are running for school board.
I have enjoyed the challenging work I’ve encountered on the school board. I am interested in serving another term. I am also concerned about the number of people in our community and elsewhere who have become convinced that public schools are the enemy. The anti-public-school narrative comes from an outside source that is hostile to the idea of communities working together across all our differing backgrounds and opinions. I want Salina to be a great place to live, not just pass through on the way to somewhere else. I want it to be a great place to grow up, a great place to move to, a great place to come back to. For that, we need great public schools.