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Willow Run graduate Anglesia Brown, 32, said she is running to restore the pride she has in her school back to the whole district.
Currently a public speaking lecturer for the University of Detroit Mercy and Washtenaw Community College, Brown graduated from Willow Run High School in 1995. Her daughter is a sixth grade student at Kettering Elementary.
“There’s no Flyer pride,” she said. “I’m still proud.”
She said one of the reasons behind the loss of pride is the infighting among adults in the district.
“The children are getting lost,” Brown said.
She said it was this infighting that partly caused the district to be in the financial trouble it is in now. She said the “finger-pointing” prevented the district from taking a needed proactive approach to “something they should have seen coming.”
A self-described “concerned parent,” Brown said, “I know what it takes to re-instill that Flyer pride.”
Brown said she would like to bring back sixth grade camp to the district. She said she would use private fundraising, volunteer recruitment and other tactics to make the program sustainable.
“There’s ways around cost,” she said.
Brown said a strong alumni association would go a long way to help provide funding and volunteers to these types of programs for the district.
“There’s a lot of talent to tap into from Willow Run graduates,” she said. “If you never ask, you’ll never know.”
It’s these types of ideas that Brown said she will bring to the board.
She said she would like to see a farm-to-school program that would bring organic food from local farms to the district that would go into the students’ meals at school.
Brown, who was endorsed by the teachers at Willow Run with Joi Jenson, said she and Jenson are not running together as any type of ticket.
“Joi is a wonderful person,” she said. “We’re taking a proactive approach.”
She also defended her campaign involvement with the teachers’ labor organization, the WREA, who helped fund promotional material, advertising and actively campaigned on the candidates’ behalf.
“I’m an independent thinker,” Brown said. “I’m ethical.”
Though the teachers have given their support to Brown and Jenson, she said she intends to make her decisions on the board without any influence from the group. She said she doesn’t feel any obligation to have the WREA’s support translate into anything but that.
Brown said she also hopes to bring more transparency and communication to the district. She said she would like to see the portions of the agenda that allow for audience comment to be improved. She said she would also like to hold meet-and-greet sessions and community forums that would allow for direct communication from the community to board members.
“In order to lead you have to be willing to serve,” Brown said.
With curriculum improvement as her number one objective, Brown said she would like to assess the district and look holistically at where to take cuts to rid Willow Run of its deficit. She said she would like to see more cooperation with local businesses and institutions that could benefit the district.
Brown used the closing of Kettering as an example. She said she would have liked to have known the criterion that was going to be used to reach the decision before the decision was made.
She said she would like to investigate what Eastern Michigan University, Washtenaw Community College and the University of Michigan have to offer, keeping in mind that graduating teachers need to accumulate student-teaching hours before they graduate.