Vote Dr. Jody Coleman for School Board this fall! Ballots due by 7 PM on 11/7/23.
About Me
Why I’m running for GWSD school board:
With over 40 years’ experience in private and public education as a teacher and researcher, I choose to put my energies in our children. Public education is the fiber of our intellectual and civic cloth, where our children can learn to live in a complicated world, develop independent thinking and responsive engagement. Experienced for over two decades in psychometric research, I understand and can interpret statistics, valuing data-driven decisions.
Spending my formative years in Denver, I was the rehearsal pianist for the Brico Symphony when I was 10 years old, but I grew up in Gunnison, skiing with my Crested Butte friends from class on weekends, and paid my way through college with academic and athletic scholarships, eventually earning my Ph.D. in Psychometrics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2000. In the late 1970s, I played professional basketball in the WBA, when the program went broke. I taught in a private boarding school in Switzerland, leading the teachers of the Swiss Group of International Schools in American curricula. In 1992, I returned stateside to re-embrace the remarkable achievement of public schooling that occurs in the United States, teaching secondary through college. I have been an EMT-I. I am one of your lifeguards at our Community Rec Center. I am highly involved in our local League of Women Voters. I am the organist for several of our local churches. I was one of the central organizers of over 700 volunteers during the pandemic as our community reached out to protect itself. I care about our Gunnison Valley.
I believe in equal access to high quality public education. I believe in respecting each student and employee. I believe in love and extend it to our valley in the most kind way I know.
This slate of three candidates, Anne Brookhart, Mark Vanderveer, and I, bring decades of experience in the public sectors, selflessly honoring public education and its messy journey of growing up. We value academic freedom, mental and emotional wellness of all citizens, and equal access to a rigorous education. Most of all, we bring an equanimity to the current polemic of a passionate community.
Summarized Experience
-2020-2022 Pandemic Response Team Member organizing the 700+ volunteers
-2018-2022 WCU Honors Program Consultant
-2018 Researcher for Universities' Honors' Programs
-2000-2005 Grant Evaluator
-1998-2000 Buros Institute of Mental Measurements.
-1990-1992 Swiss Group of International Schools Coordinating Director of English Curriculum
- Over 40 years teaching experience!