Latest news with #PoudreSchoolDistrictBoardofEducation
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Former steering committee member Andrew Spain running for seat on PSD Board of Education
Andrew Spain gained a lot of insight into the Poudre School District while serving as a parent representative last year on the Facilities Planning Steering Committee that was tasked with recommending school consolidations and closures to address declining enrollment. That insight, he said April 7, revealed not only the challenges the district was facing but also opportunities to do some things that 'are pretty doggone amazing.' And it's why he's running for a seat on the Poudre School District Board of Education in District E in the November election. Incumbent Carolyn Reed, first appointed to the board to fill a vacancy in 2015 and re-elected twice since then, is term-limited and cannot run again. Spain filed his formal candidate paperwork March 30 with the Colorado Secretary of State's office and has already started distributing a one-page flyer listing his qualifications, accomplishments and goals for the school board. Spain, 58, and his wife, Beth, live in Wellington and are both graduates of PSD schools. Between them, they have seven children, ranging in age from 16 to 32. More: Timnath annexes 50-acre site Poudre School District bought in 1999 for possible new school Plans to close and consolidate some schools, as recommended by the Facilities Planning Steering Committee, were ultimately scrapped by the Board of Education last spring following widespread community opposition. Declining enrollment and the associated cuts in per-pupil spending, though, remain and will continue to be a major focus of the school board in the coming years, Spain said. 'We, as a district, are facing both significant challenges as well as tremendous opportunity as far as where the school district can go,' Spain said. 'Having graduated in the school district and having kids in the school district, I would like to be part of identifying and creating those solutions long-term.' Andrew Spain, a Wellington resident and graduate of Fort Collins High School, is running for a seat on the Poudre School District Board of Education in the November 2025 election. Spain has a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Missouri and works as the associate executive director for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, he said. Spain also holds bachelor's and master's degrees in political science, from the universities of Northern Colorado and Missouri, respectively; has been a licensed paramedic in both Colorado and Missouri for more than 30 years; and served as director of the Emergency Medical Services Education program at the University of Missouri. 'I think I bring a lot of skills, abilities and experience to being able to help identify solutions and solve the problems and move the district into some amazing things moving forward,' Spain said. 'The community has such an appetite for it; we obviously saw that with the consolidation efforts. The community wants really high-quality education available to the students. There are so many things that I think we're going to be able to do that are pretty doggone amazing when it comes down to it.' Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@ and This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Former steering committee member running for seat on PSD school board
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Longtime teacher of teachers running for a seat on PSD Board of Education
Tom Griggs, who spent most of his professional career teaching teachers, is running for a seat on the Poudre School District Board of Education in the November 2025 election. Griggs, 71, is running for the District D seat currently held by Jim Brokish, who said he is not running for reelection. Candidates must live in the geographic district they represent but are elected by all voters in the school district, which spans more than 1,800 square miles. The volunteer directors serve four-year terms. Serving on the PSD school board 'is just an extension of my career, my professional interest, my fascination with teaching and learning,' Griggs told the Coloradoan on April 28. 'It's a chance to serve the community that has supported me for the 25 years.' Tom Griggs, a retired education professor and Fort Collins resident for 25 years, is running for the District D seat on the Poudre School District Board of Education in the November 2025 election. Griggs has two adult children who attended and graduated from PSD schools while he was teaching education classes for 20 years as a professor at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. He was previously a professor at San Jose State University. Many of his former students, he said, are teachers and administrators in PSD and other Northern Colorado school districts. He earned a teaching license and master's degrees in education for teaching English and social studies at the secondary level and in arts for teaching English as a second language at UCLA. After teaching high school in Salinas, California, Griggs went back to school to earn a doctorate in teacher education from the University of Toronto, he said. Griggs has also worked internationally, receiving a grant to work with Brazilian public school teachers of English as a foreign language in the fall of 2016. That led to a Fulbright Distinguished Teaching Award that turned into a visiting international professor's position at a university in Brazil. Griggs said he returned to Fort Collins from Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since worked as both a full-time and temporary substitute teacher and social emotional learning specialist in both the Poudre and Thompson school districts. He is a former president of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education and was a chair and co-founder of the group now known as Advocates for Public Education Policy, Griggs said. 'I think I have some unique perspective to add to the mix of perspectives that are on the board currently,' Griggs said. 'Unique and, I guess, valuable. I think there's a real advantage to know what the school system looks like and how it works from inside and out from a scholarly point of view. I'm a systems thinker, and I approach study with an open mind, looking at it from other people's perspectives.' Griggs is the only candidate so far to announce their candidacy and file official paperwork for the District D seat, according to the Colorado Secretary of State's online database. District D is located in north Fort Collins. Two candidates in other districts have also announced their candidacy for Board of Education seats in the November 2025 election — Sabrina Herrick in District C (northeast Fort Collins) and Andrew Spain in District E (northern and western Larimer County, including Wellington, Red Feather Lakes and Poudre Canyon). Another potential candidate who had filed an affadavit and paperwork with the secretary of state's office in February, Ashley Hale, told the Coloradoan on May 5 that she had changed her mind and would not run. Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@ and This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Longtime teacher of teachers running for seat on PSD school board
