Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD) Friends of Public Education Award

I am so proud, honored, and humbled to receive the AMSD 2021 Friends of Public Education Award for my support of students, public education, and my work facilitating and guiding the Reimagine Minnesota work.

When I started working with the Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD), the first thing we stopped doing was taking a reactive approach to problems. We started a new, proactive approach, looking around the table, agreeing that we can’t run from issues anymore, saying that enough is enough:

We really need to figure out what we can do for these kids.

We have to find a solution; we have to ask what people want in their education, what the parents want, what the community wants, we have to ask students what they want, and we have to do better.

We have to figure out what our next right step is.

We have to figure out what our differences are and build our bridges
rather than figure out how we can defend what our history is.

I am so grateful that AMSD invited me to work with them because I know that this is where the hard work is being done. Superintendents came together collaboratively, talked at a deeper level, built relationships, listened to each other, listened to the students and really figured out that we have to find the human in all of us.

My grandfather was an incredible inventor and an advocate of civil rights, which he taught and passed on to my father. My father was a civil rights leader in New Brunswick Canada, then moved to the states, settling in Madison Wisconsin. Now I pass it down to my nephew Dario Otero, an ally in all this work. He trusted me when I said I really needed his help as an educator to do the Reimagine Minnesota work. He left his job full time, started his own business, worked with me and trusted me that we would find a way. I know he will continue to pass this work down in our family. Thank you Dario. I have so much fun working with you and am so grateful that you are with me on this journey.

Thank you to Scott Croonquist for being an advocate of my work for so many, many years. You are one of my favorite people. I am so grateful to you for always having my back and supporting me.

And thank you to John Schultz, who invited me in 2015 to talk to superintendents. This changed the trajectory of my career. As an attorney, I would be called in when people had a crisis or a conflict. Being proactive, not reactive, is essential.

I am so thankful to AMSD's leadership team for this incredible recognition and to everyone who supported me and believed in me.

My commitment to reforming the education system is so deep and it includes every student doing well and receiving an excellent education.