For Heather Guernsey, public education is the great equalizer, the best hope for lifting people out of poverty and the path for students to decide what they want to be. Guernsey serves on the Chanute USD 413 board and is a new member of the KASB Board of Directors.

Her views are based on her own experiences as well as the challenges facing her southeast Kansas community and KASB Region 3. As part of a military family, Heather attended multiple schools before graduating high school in Wamego. She earned an education degree from Emporia State University, started teaching in Olathe, and then moved to Chanute with her husband, a family physician.

“Public education has just been ingrained in me,” she said. “Being a teacher is part of it, but when I look at my own life, I was the first person in my family to go to college, the first person to get my master's degree. I never could have done that without public education and without teachers showing me that it was possible.”

Heather’s life experience gives her insight into how education can change lives. “We were not well off,” she said. When I was a kid, I was oblivious to our financial struggles because my parents gave us everything we needed. But I also knew my parents wanted me to be better and do more than they did. I will never forget the teachers who showed me I could do better than I thought was possible. So, it’s really important to me, especially in the community that I live in, that people know what their options are, and that public education can help push them to do more.”

After moving to Chanute, Heather volunteered to serve on site councils and PTOs for her children’s schools. In 2021, she was recruited to run for an open seat on the Chanute USD 413 school board. “I was really happy with the way the school district was being run, but I saw it was a way to continue volunteering, so I thought I’d try it out.”

Board service brought some surprises. “Having been a teacher, I thought I would know what the school board was all about, and I did not,” Heather said. “I had to learn that the school board was more of the big oversight group. Everyone had their role. We don't need to micromanage, because the administrators, the teachers, they're the experts.”

One challenge locally has been board member turnover. “When I first got on the board, we had a lot of members that had been on for 12 years, 16 years, and so we had that wisdom,” Heather said. “I feel like that probably helped my transition to the board greatly. Then in this last election we had five new board members elected.  It’s been a little bit of a struggle of onboarding these new members and doing that without all those years of experience. One great thing about KASB has been networking with other board members from all across the state to get ideas on how to onboard new school board members.”

Heather’s involvement with KASB began when her superintendent suggested she attend conferences and made her aware of the Leadership for Tomorrow program. “I found these (KASB) resources are amazing,” said Heather. “Helping to inform school board members all across the state is just great, and I wanted to be part of it.” Last fall, she was appointed to fill a KASB Board vacancy.

“What I see in Chanute are educators who love teaching and who are experts in their field, going to school every day and teaching kids the curriculum, and loving those kids and wanting to help them realize their potential.” What makes that more difficult are the struggles of many families. “I look at many kids and feel like they are in good hands. But then you do see the other end of the spectrum, where kids have had not only trauma, but generational trauma. In my mind, the only way to get out of that is to see something better.” And that, she says, puts more burden on teachers. “Now teachers are being asked to do so many things. They are a counselor, a nurse, a first responder in the trauma world. We're asking them to do a lot of things that they're either not trained to do or don't feel comfortable doing and we are struggling to be able to pay teachers what they're actually worth.”

Heather estimated Chanute could have paid teachers $10,000 more if the district was receiving the actual percentage of special education funding mandated in state law (92 percent of excess costs).

Heather praised how Chanute, like many districts, has strong career technical education (CTE) pathway programs and partnered with the local community college to expand ways students can explore careers and earn college credit in high school. “Kids can earn certificates for jobs here in Chanute and to help our economy and help everyone here have a better standard of living.”