Two years ago, Lisa Connors and Clarissa Ruston were rivals in the bid to finish the unexpired term of longtime Auburn School Board board member Ted Leonard.
Both had been appointed temporarily to the seat, but Connors won the following election contest. She hopes to win reelection Nov. 3 to a full four-year term. And once more she and Ruston are rivals for the seat.
Both candidates recently addressed the Auburn Noon Lions last week.
Connors is a single mother of three boys, one at Lakeview Elementary, two at Auburn High School. She takes classes at the University of Washington Tacoma full time while working full time and will graduate in June with a bachelor’s degree in political science and values. She has an associates degree in business administration. At the moment, she is the only school board member with children still in the district.
“The reason I ran for the school board two years ago was because I was frustrated with the school district,” Connors said, adding that her kids have struggled since they left elementary school. She said that after talking to district officials, however, her frustration turned to a passion to help all kids.
Among her issues are:
• Improving communication between school staff, parents and students
• Raising academic standards and providing the tools for students to be successful.
• Ensuring that the growing district focuses on the cost of transportation while ensuring student safety.
Connors supports the Nov. 3 levy, but believes it is the state’s responsibility to fully fund education and wants to “really push the state to do their paramount duty and fund education. I don’t believe it’s the taxpayer’s responsibility to do that, although we are able to do that in addition to what the state can do,” Connors said.
Ruston, the mother of a sixth-grade daughter and a third-grade son in the district, called herself “a lifelong learner” with “a commitment to continuing education as a professional and as a leader of the community.”
Ruston has an associate of arts in general studies from Green River Community College in 1985 and a B.A. in parks and recreation, from Western Washington University, in 1988. Since 1992, she has worked as a parks, arts and recreation coordinator for the City of Auburn.
Her issues include the following:
• Given the limited funds the district receives from the state, Ruston said she strongly supports the levy aimed at supplementing the district’s budget to maintain strong facilities and quality educational programs.
“In the event that it fails – which it’s not going to because we are all going to support it – then we need to focus on what we are going to do to fix those facilities and really focus on the academic success of our students and make sure we have all the systems in place that we need to ensure their success. We need to reach out to other community groups if we can for their support,” said Ruston.
• Keep up with changing demographics and provide district staff training and resources to meet the educational needs of students to attain high academic standards.
• Increase parent involvement, starting off at the kindergarten level and continuing through high school, so that people know the importance of the role they play in their childrens’ lives.
“Our demographics are changing in the community, and they are going to continue to change in the future,” said Ruston. “We need to continue working toward closing the achievement gap between the different groups and populations of students we have and work with the district administration toward that,” said Ruston.
“It is the state’s paramount duty to fully fund education, and yet they are not, and we need to figure out what to do there so we don’t have to come back as voters to help support and carry some programs across the finish line for them.”
