School Board Questionnaire
Question Eight
If you are a new candidate for the School Board, what have you done in your community or professional life to advance diversity, equity and inclusion?
Joe Brinkman
I created and distributed the blue Protect Wyoming Neighborhood Schools yard signs this year in an attempt to raise awareness of the primary facilities master planning process. While I personally support retaining our three neighborhood schools in their current configuration, my ultimate goal was making the process more inclusive. I felt that certain groups had been excluded from the planning process, and such a process could never lead to the best solution for our community.
In my professional work, I am an active member of my organization’s Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging initiative. I have also been one of the leads for our parents Employee Resource Group for a number of years, helping to provide a voice for working parents.
Michael Evans
Most recently I worked with colleagues at the University of Tennessee and Miami University to conduct a national study of superintendents focused on contemporary leadership challenges in public education. This study includes the navigation of public discourses on topics like DEI. The findings from this study will be disseminated through presentations/publications and hopefully inform district-level leadership at the national level. In my role as a faculty member at Miami, I have prepared over a thousand educators (teachers, principals and superintendents) to work with diverse families and communities. This includes an emphasis on best practices that prioritize engagement opportunities over school-centric informational or feedback encounters. Finally, at the local level I have volunteered with various organizations including WCIA, where I co-chaired with Rhonda Evans the youth/teen committee for the Juneteeth celebration in 2022 (although, in full disclosure it was the amazing WHS students and ACES members who did most of the work).
Illya Thomas
N/A
Jeanie Zoller
N/A
John Feldmeier
N/A
