ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

The Kansas State Board of Education is seeking some new people, and Lorie Wood is one of the candidates running for District 5.

Wood said her roots in the area and in education run deep.

“I was born and raised in Colorado, but my husband was military for 22 years, so we traveled all over, and I’ve taught overseas. I have been an educator for more than 30 years,” Wood said. “I have a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and an endorsement in ESL, and then I have a master’s degree. My last full-time teaching physician was at the University of Colorado, and we moved to Kansas in fall of 2019 At that time, I was teaching online classes only, and that was due to me developing multiple sclerosis. Then, I started getting focused on politics due to some of the things that have been happening throughout the past year. I was talking with a friend of mine, and we were both talking about how we needed action, not just talk. The first thing I had to do was take a stand on which side of the political field I wanted to be on, because I was an unaffiliated voter at that time. The Democratic Party has  more in line with my beliefs than the current extreme Republican Party. I organized a party in our county since we didn’t have one, and as the chair of the party, I looked into what offices were coming open this year, and we discovered one of them was the state board of education for our district. I actually tried to find other people to run, and didn’t find anybody, but multiple people asked me ‘Why aren’t YOU doing it?’ After talking to my husband and my family, everybody was very supportive, and even though I’m in a wheelchair, my brain still works for me, so I decided to run. That’s how I got involved, and given my background as an educator, it seemed like a perfect combination.”

Wood added education has always been an important part of her life.

“When I was a little girl, I had a Korean neighbor who had moved in when I was 8 years old, and I used to take my books over to her, and I taught her how to speak English,” Wood said. “When I became an adult, that was the logical step for me to become an educator. I was the editor of a newspaper by the time I was 18 and did that for a while, and then I went back to school for my teaching certification. I wanted to have the ESL endorsement too, and at that time, you had to have your master’s degree, and you couldn’t have your master’s degree at the same time as a bachelor’s degree, so they allowed me to do everything but the dissertation or the thesis paper for that. I was a very hard-working student, graduated at the top of my class and I managed to get two degrees.”

Wood said one of her goals is making sure the state’s schools are properly funded.

“I’m from Decatur County, and our schools are very old, so much so they don’t even have an HVAC system, so we’re spending a lot of money just trying to maintain those, and we can’t get a bond passed because people are elderly and are afraid they can’t afford higher taxes,” Wood said. “When I became my party chair, that was the question I started with – Can we get our schools fixed? So we’re working on a way to do capital improvements differently than what we’ve traditionally done. There’s definitely the need for better schools and higher teacher salaries. We can’t keep good teachers, especially in the western part of Kansas. Kansas has the lowest top salary in the country, so it’s no wonder teachers want to go somewhere else. We also have such a high demand for SPED, and the paraprofessionals that support SPED also don’t even make a living wage. You can make more at Sonic where I live than you can at as a paraeducator, and that’s only nine months of the year, they don’t even get paid over the summer months, and I feel that’s something that can be fixed. Properly funding our schools is definitely something I would like to see happen.”

Another major goal Wood said she has is improving literacy.

“I’m a very big literacy advocate, and I have taught literacy at every age level. That’s huge for me, because we have a very low overall testing scores,” Wood said. “We have to figure out if the testing scores are really a reflection of what our students are doing? That’s definitely something I want to encourage the state to explore further. Not only do we need a blueprint for literacy, but we also need one for math. Having students ready to go at the end of high school for whatever path is hugely important.”

Wood also talked about being a representative of such a big area. 

“The idea of representing such a big area was a little wow at first, but I’m a very hands-on person – even when I’m teaching in a classroom, I’m not a fan of standing at the front of the classroom, I prefer acting with the students directly,” Wood said. “And now that I have 45 counties to potentially be responsible for, I still feel the same way. Also, I haven’t been able to travel down this area, so I’m excited about all my traveling and everything I’ll get to see and people I get to meet, so it’s been great.”

Overall, Wood said, she is excited to get to work.

“With my ESL background, I think that’s really important for this area since there are a lot of English language learners,” Wood said. “I think with that background I have an edge, and the fact I’ve been an educator for so long and focused on literacy, so there’s a lot I can bring to the table,”