Jamie Borgman was chosen by her colleagues on the Shawnee Mission USD 512 school board as the Regional Vice President on the KASB Board of Directors. As one of the state’s five largest districts, Shawnee Mission constitutes a region on the KASB board. Other districts are represented by Regional Vice Presidents drawn from district regions. Despite its size, Jamie says the challenges facing her district are similar to every other district in the state. So is the mission, preparing all students to be successful.

A third-generation Kansan with family roots in farming and the oil business, Jamie grew up in the Topeka area. She majored in journalism at Kansas State University and started a career in broadcasting that led to an Emmy award. She then moved into medical sales and currently serves as a regional business director for a global oncology company.

After she and her husband, a western Kansas native from Garden City, settled in Johnson County and her children entered school in the Shawnee Mission district, she became active in PTA organizations and school booster clubs.

With the help of other parents she founded the Shawnee Mission Circle of Kindness program, which had students from schools across the district collect toiletry products for those in need. The project was largely led by students. “We wanted the kids to feel empowered and to feel they have the ability to bring kindness into our community to make a difference,” Jamie said. “We collected thousands of toiletry kits that were donated to the Shawnee Mission School District area, to the larger Johnson County Human Services, and then to our bigger community through the City Union Mission.”

Five years ago the Shawnee Mission school board had an open position and Jamie decided to run. She wanted to make it a teaching opportunity. “It was very important to me that kids got involved and felt part of the process,” she said. “I decided to file on International Women's Day, because I wanted women to feel empowered. I also invited as many children of color as I could, because we are so underrepresented on school boards, and even in the classroom with people of color, leading districts and leading our classrooms. Ten or 20 years down the road, maybe I will have inspired one of those kids to run for office.”

Her campaign was successful, but she was immediately confronted with two tough issues. The first involved a challenging teacher contract negotiation that resulted in Jamie being the only member voting against. That was a position she says created some initial tension with other members but said it was important to stand by her own views. The second involved the pandemic and the difficult policy choices that followed.

“Those votes were very personal to me and my family,” she said. “I lost a lot of sleep, cried a lot of tears. And I'm thankful that while we as a school board didn't vote together on every single decision, people respected one another for voting as they felt was best for the district.” She thinks that was possible because members trusted that they all share the same basic goals, even if there are different opinions on how to reach them.

Despite the challenges, Jamie appreciates her years on school board, having just been reelected last fall. “I have grown more as a leader in the past five years as a school board member than I ever could have going to any kind of a PhD program,” she remarked. Her advice for anyone considering school board service is to have a long talk with current members and truly understand the role of the board.

Jamie believes most districts share the same concerns. These include adequate school finance, special education funding and the shortage of teachers and other staff. In particular, she is concerned about having too few teachers of color for more diverse student populations. She notes that Shawnee Mission, like Kansas, has become much more diverse. This includes differences in race, economic status and disabilities. That development, she says, is both a challenge and a strength. She hopes school districts across the state can address these issues together.

“I think that it's just really great that public schools can tear down some of those barriers (between students), because I think those barriers are only put up by adults that have misunderstanding and misconceptions,” she said. “I think that the beauty of public education is that it changes cycles, and it breaks cycles and it gives students sort of a level playing field, regardless of your zip code.”