It's said that change is the only constant, but South Dakota is stuck, continually revisiting
concerns that really aren't that concerning to most people in our state, while real needs
remain unmet.
Our smartest and brightest leaving for greener pastures.
We can change that.
Welcome to Change Agents and the Power of We.
Hello and welcome to the Power of We.
I'm Rick Knobe.
The Power of We is brought to you by the Change Agents of South Dakota.
This edition of the Power of We, we're going to talk about school board election in Sioux
Falls, South Dakota.
It's coming up on May 16th and absentee voting will begin on May 1st through the 15th.
There are two candidates running.
Today we're going to talk with one of them.
Her name is Dawn Marie Johnson and she is sitting across from me on a relatively cloudy
but bright day in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Dawn Marie, hello and welcome.
Hello, yes.
Thank you so much for having me.
So school board in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Why do you want to serve on the Sioux Falls school board?
I have had the experience of working within school systems for 12 years.
Working what I understand, working alongside teachers during the pandemic has really aligned
well for me to be in this position to serve our public education system.
Give us a little background of what you've done in education.
Yeah, I started my career in a tribal school working as a community outreach person in
an after school space.
So from there I was asked to coordinate, run, write grants and be a part of that to build
up educational spaces and outreach for students on the reservation up north.
Okay and then you've been in Sioux Falls for a while, you've been active in the school
system here.
What have you done for us while you've been in Sioux Falls?
Currently I am on the Indian Education Parent Committee.
I also serve as a member of the Bridging the Gap Foundation, which helps provide funding
for different entities within the school systems like our Leaders of Tomorrow program that
was hosted at the Joe Foss Axtell Park building.
I also serve as a Human Relations Commissioner and I'm helpful in that way.
And I work at Volunteers of America at Access 180 every Thursday night with homeless youth
in programming to help them build up confidence, learn soft skills and work towards transitioning
into adulthood.
You mentioned Joe Foss just a moment ago.
A lot of people know that name but they don't necessarily know what that means in terms
of education.
Explain what the Joe Foss school is about.
Absolutely.
Joe Foss is an alternative learning center for all high schools here in Sioux Falls.
It serves youth ages 14 to 20 and at some point or another they fell behind in credits.
More often than not it was because of an adverse situation, kids who have kids, but ultimately
it's a space for alternative learning.
And we can't expect all children to learn the same and it's been a wonderful space to
highlight and shed light on in recognizing that fact.
And as we grow and evolve as a city, opportunities like this are vital for our education system.
What role did you play when you were at Joe Foss?
I was the CTE and Community Outreach Coordinator.
What's a CTE?
Yes, all the acronyms.
Career Technical Education.
So I played a liaison role between the CTE Academy and Joe Foss to offer learning opportunities
for students to try out what they have at CTE in hopes that they get inspired by a certain
avenue or field to take classes or to invest in looking at job shadows, internships, and
those sort of ways.
So I facilitated internships for the Joe Foss program, but I also helped with the workforce.
So we were able to help them apply for jobs and even a deeper layer further, some of those
students didn't know where their birth certificate was.
They didn't know their social security card number.
And some of those real life experiences and documents even were a part of my role in helping
them succeed beyond school.
Okay.
There's been, there's a lot of news these days coming out of education.
The standards for social studies approved by the State Board of Education, which is
highly controversial.
There are groups, national groups that are trying to infiltrate school boards to take
control of education, et cetera, et cetera, under the guise of parents' Bill of Rights
and some of those other kinds of things.
As there's four members, five members on the school board, assuming you get elected on
May 16th, what do you see as your role in helping us, the teachers and the students
navigate through some pretty murky and controversial waters?
I think it's going to be incredibly important to have an existing relationship with teachers.
I've worked really hard to get into schools to talk with students and their liaisons.
I've worked incredibly hard to be in different communities, diverse communities, different
avenues that might not understand what a school board does and being, having those open conversations
to build awareness on what the possibilities are to have a stronger relationship between
their school board and folks has been important to me.
I spoke earlier with a group talking about getting ahead of it so it doesn't become a
problem.
I would love to be that person that is a trusted community member and known as a person that
you can communicate with and bring your issues to before it turns into something that we
wouldn't like to see.
I want to go to some of the news stories, national news stories about book bans and
stuff like that.
My understanding is there's a process that exists within the administration of the school
district that deals with concerns that parents have about individual books.
Correct.
And I'm not expecting you to know all the details, but can you give me a little sense
of how that works?
If I'm a concerned parent, I don't think my child should be reading this or I don't like
this in the curriculum.
How can I impact the school board and have some dialogue with them on resolving my concern?
From my understanding, there is a form that exists for parents to grab, pull the book
that they have concerns on, fill out the form and take it to the school board to have those
discussions.
Okay.
Do you know if that's actually happened in Sioux Falls yet?
I know it's happening nationally all over the place.
I can't speak to what has currently happened.
No.
Okay.
You are, how do I put this?
Obviously you're passionate about this.
Do you have some specific, this is what I want to get done in my first term of office,
some specific goals?
Absolutely.
The one space that I'm most knowledgeable in is the afterschool world.
And the opportunity of the community learning centers is incredibly exciting for me.
I see it as an area of growth that is necessary to build up our parent guardian partnerships,
teacher partnerships, community partnerships, getting people actively involved as a community
with these learning centers is a true opportunity.
Again, with this growth of Sioux Falls, we need to have a space that showcases community,
but also builds in opportunities for students and exposure for students that they might
not get during the school day.
And those, that is something that I want to see done well because I feel strongly about
it being a pillar of hope for us as we grow as a pillar of hope for students to find a
safe place.
And parents number one concern is continually talking about feeling safe.
And when we have a workforce that's working incredibly late at night, these afterschool
programs are going to be so vital for parents to have open to know that they're getting
quality programming is, is an area that I'm most passionate about.
So when you're talking about first year, I know that's a lot.
I know it's a lot.
But my experience with that and being able to speak to community members, to speak to
city council members, to speak to current school board members and parents and giving
them that information and shedding light on its importance and where it can be a space
for them to feel comfortable sending their child.
I'm excited to be that person.
Okay.
We're talking with Dawn Marie Johnson.
She is a candidate for the Sioux Falls School Board.
The election is on May 16th.
Early voting starts on May 1st through the 15th.
You have to be registered to vote in the Sioux Falls School District by May 1st.
If you don't know how to get that done, you can get a hold of the instructional planning
center here in Sioux Falls.
And if you're not registered to vote at all in the county, get a hold of your friendly
local county auditor and get registered through them.
What I've done when I've interviewed people like you in the past, I get to the end and
I look at you and I say, I'm going to let you do a 30 second commercial for you.
So I'm going to give you, and I'm not going to use a stopwatch or anything like that,
but here's the basic question.
Why should I vote for you?
Well, I believe that our best investment we can make is in our children and families
right now.
Given the pandemic and everything that our families and teachers have gone through, we
need to take care of the people taking care of the people, and that's going to be vital
for me to have the experience, knowledge, partnerships, sounding board space to be that
person to help that along.
I want everyone to be able to come to me and I want to build partnerships and I want to
make sure that we're lifting up Sioux Falls in the most safe way.
I want my daughter to grow up in a world that she feels confident, loved, supported, and
safe.
And by being a part of the Sioux Falls School District, I'm going to work every day to ensure
that.
That's Dawn Marie Johnson in her own words, unscripted.
Dawn Marie, thank you very much.
It was a pleasure to meet you.
I'm looking forward to the election and at the risk of tipping my hand, you've got my
vote.
Wow, thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
This has been The Power of We brought to you by Change Agents of South Dakota.
Thank you very much for listening.
Tell your friends about us.
Thank you so much.