There will be two new members on Woodland School District 50’s Board of Education after the April 4 election, but there’s no question as to who those members will be.
The school district’s upcoming election is uncontested, one of many Lake County races this year where there’s only one person vying for a seat.
Three seats are up on the district’s Board of Education, and only one current board member whose term is expiring, Brianna Powvens, is running for reelection. Lizzy Helgren and Joseph De Rosa, both board members since 2017, are not seeking reelection to the board.
Also running for election to the board are parents with children in the district, Amy Sabor and Gari Matsey.
Powvens is wrapping up her first term on the board, saying that there were “growing pains” during the two-year term, but that she “figured it out.” She said that during this upcoming term, one thing that she wants to help improve is communication between the board and the community.
– Original Credit: News-Sun
She also wants to help students have more of a voice in making board decisions, adding that she’d love to have students work in a committee and figure out what the board needs to know about the school from the students’ perspective.
“We’re listening to the adults,” Powvens said. “We need to start getting input from the kids.”
She is also excited to get input from the two new board members, Sabor and Matsey, and help them as they learn the ropes of being board members.
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Sabor was asked to run for the board partly because of her community activism, most notably leading the door-to-door canvassing effort in support of the Warren Township High School District 121 referendum, which was approved by voters last year. Because of her prior volunteer experience, and her profession as a landscape contractor, Sabor says she was, “not afraid of the ground game.”
– Original Credit: News-Sun
“It was very important for me to help bring the information to voters’ doorsteps, and have conversations in our community to really discover what our community wants and how they felt about the high school,” Sabor said.
She has two children at Woodland, as well as a child at Warren Township High School, and said that she is bringing to the board the voice of a parent who has had a child go through all of the buildings in the district.
Once she joins the board, Sabor said that she wants to address parents’ concerns about school safety. As a founding member of the Gurnee-area Moms Demand Action group, a group that fights for public safety measures to protect people from gun violence, Sabor says that she is dedicated to ensuring that the district’s schools are safe for students.
When a mass shooting occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last year, Sabor said that it reminded her of the Woodland district.
“When the Uvalde tragedy happened, it echoed our Woodland dual-language program,” Sabor said. “I just care about giving my time and doing whatever I can to make sure that everybody has a positive experience at Woodland, and that our families feel good about sending their kids to school every day.”
Matsey, a district parent, is the director of The Renfrew Center, an eating disorder treatment facility in Northbrook, and is running for her first term on the Woodland board. She said that her background is in mental health, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the study of human behavior.
Her background is in school counseling work, which she says will help her during her time on the board. She said that she wants to join the board to be a voice for fellow moms of children in the district.
– Original Credit: News-Sun
“I’m a working mom, and I think that representation for all of the various demographics in Woodland’s district is very important,” Matsey said. “I want to be able to be that voice, to create a platform and a space for parents to be heard.”
Matsey said that what she’s looking forward to most in the upcoming term is connecting with families throughout the district and “seeing what they need.”
“I’ve had the opportunity to get to know some of the other board members, and I’m very excited to be an agent of change with them,” Matsey said.