As she prepares for her final meeting after 32 years on the Kent School Board, Sandy Collins can look back over her schools career and see how much some things have changed, and how much hasn’t.
She’s outlasted three superintendents and multiple board members, but through it all has tried to keep her focus on why she is there.
“It’s still reading, writing and arithmetic and dealing with youngster’s needs,” Collins said this past week. “We’re still teaching them to read and write.”
But beginning next month, the education of Kent students will no longer be Collins’ responsibility, as Wednesday’s Kent School Board meeting will be her last.
After more than three decades, Collins has decided it is time for some fresh blood on the board.
“It’s going to be hard,” she said of stepping away from her role, but noted she and her husband want to be able to travel more and now that she is many years removed from having kids in the district, the thought of running another election campaign was a bit much.
“It’s time,” she said.
Collins, 67, was first appointed to the school board in 1977 to replace Stephen Johnson, a neighbor of hers. Collins said she was an active PTA member and president of the PTA area council and viewed the School Board as the best way to continue to be involved.
“I’d been really actively involved in school stuff and I thought it would be the next thing to do, in terms of doing more for kids’ educations,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was going to become my avocation.”
During her time on the board, the Kent School District has seen tremendous changes, the most noticeable being the growth that has occurred within its borders.
In 1977, there were 20 schools in the district. Today, there are 40 and Collins said that being involved in 20 building openings has been a highlight for her.
“It was still a big school district,” she says on Kent back in the day. “A big school district, but a small town.”
Along with the size, Collins said the biggest change during her time has been to the district’s demographics. While the valley, and the district, was mostly white back then, today it is a majority minority district, and though it is something she counts as one of the district’s strengths, it does change things.
“That affects how you teach,” she said. “That affects every aspect of education.”
She also said the amount of technology in the classroom also is a big change in the district, which has gone from traditional blackboards to smartboards and laptops for all middle school students (who were still called “junior high” students when she began) during her run.
The past couple of years have been among the hardest, she said, as the district has had to deal with financial issues brought on by the lagging economy. Collins said the “pretty significant cuts” the district had to make this year were difficult, but necessary for the long-term financial stability of the district, as well as to increase teacher salaries, which Collins said are lower than they should be everywhere.
“I don’t think i’d be a teacher on a bet,” she said with a laugh, adding that she doesn’t think she has the “patience” for the job.
Collins said her favorite part of being on the board has been the people she gets to work with and learning about education.
“It’s just so interesting all the time,” she said, adding, “There’s so much more to a school district than a classroom.”
Collins said as a board member, it was important that read all of the material she was given and to stay up on new educational theories and practices so she could make the best decisions about the district.
But it’s a far cry from her career as a dental hygienist and her second job as a travel agent (a job she said she took because she always had the “travel bug”).
Collins said during her first term on the board, she used to take a steno pad into the then-superintendent’s office and ask a lot of questions to better learn about her role on the board.
Over the years, she said her role has become one of “mother hen.” She also says it was important take an evenhanded approach and ask a lot of questions.
“I’m passionate, but I’m passionate on an even keel,” she said.
Collins noted among her other favorite moments were the graduations she attended each spring. During this past year’s graduations, which took place for the first time at Kent’s ShoWare Center, Collins said she became a little nostalgic knowing it would be her last.
“They’re just so much fun,” she said. “It’s just such a happy time.”
Collins said if she could offer advice to Tim Clark, who is taking over her seat, it would be to “listen more, talk less.”
“If you don’t listen well, you don;t understand what the issues are,” she said, adding that doesn’t mean a board member should be afraid to ask questions or challenge the information being provided.
While the district officials are the professionals, Collins said it’s important to remember that the board represents the interest of everyone living in the district and must keep in mind the community’s interests, as well as those of the education community.
“That’s a big job,” Collins said, adding that there’s “never enough funding” to do everything they want to do.
Collins said she plans to remain active and to attend board meetings from time to time – only this time from the audience side, but for now is looking forward to traveling with her husband, Paul (known as “Packy”), including a trip to see her son in Georgia.
She looks back on her times and thinks to herself “good job, well done” and is even a little surprised herself at how long her tenure lasted.
“If someone asked me in 1977 I never would have thought I’d be here today,” she said. “Bless the voters of the Kent School District.”
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