Lois Valente touts corporate skills
as assets for school-board post

Grosse Pointe Board of Education candidate Lois Valente, left, hopes to use her background in strategic planning to better integrate technology into the school curriculum, focus on setting annual goals and increase communication among individual schools. A 24-year resident of Grosse Pointe with three teenagers in Grosse Pointe schools, Valente has been a frequent observer of school board meetings and involved with parent organizations. 

Why should voters elect you to the school board?

I’ve been active with the board for many years. I have three children in the district. One of my children has special needs, so I’ve been involved with the Partnership for Different Learners, which is a special-needs parent group that a lot of people don’t know exists. So I’ve been participating at that level for quite a while as well as at my children’s other schools.

I have a background in strategic planning and using market-driven strategies, which is something that Gov. Snyder talks about a lot and is a big basis for his administration right now. So I thought that my background in strategic planning in the private sector and now by working at Wayne State that I understand what it means to serve the public sector that I could use those two sets of skills and make a contribution to the district.

There are a lot of changes going on right now in the school district. Which do you find most interesting?

I certainly think the change in leadership with Dr. Klein leaving will be interesting because she’s been so key to how this district runs, to see how Mr. Harwood’s leadership is going to affect the way we move forward and some of the decisions we make. The change of population within Grosse Pointe and how we approach education is also going to be interesting. The socioeconomic status has changed dramatically in the last 10 years here, predominately within the last five or six years. Like the rest of the Michigan economy we certainly have been affected. I think that that challenge is going to be something new for Grosse Pointe to handle.

What changes would you like to see in the school community in the next several years?

Well, I’d like to see a funding increase! I’d like to see some parts of our community really remain intact: certainly the commitment that families have, the participation that the families have with the school district. I’d like to see us move a little bit more forward with technology and how we’re using it. It’s been the sacrificial lamb with all the budget cuts; we’ve not spent a lot of money upgrading our infrastructure. And also embedding the technology into the curriculum, which is something that I’m probably a little bit more knowledgeable about because I have a background in corporate training. In 10 years I’d like to see the district having taken the lead with technology and embedded it into the curriculum, not for the sake of technology, but as a tool for learning.

What are some things you would try to do if elected?

I would try to get the board to focus on setting annual goals instead of a five-year plan. I think things are changing so rapidly with the government in Michigan, that we need to focus on annual, measurable and specific goals. I would try to increase the cross-collaboration among the schools themselves. Each one is now very autonomous; all the information feeds up through a chimney, and the crossover is at the executive level. I think that that crossover needs to be lower, because I think the schools can share and learn from each other. 

Where do you stand on schools of choice?

I think like all the other candidates for school board, we’re all against it. 

What are your views on the Head Start program?

I would say most of parents in Grosse Pointe send their children to preschool because they know it’s good for them, and they don’t ever ask their preschool to evaluate or measure its effectiveness. We know preschool is good for kids. Head Start wants to come in and provide a cost-neutral opportunity for our district and for some of our students. That’s it for me.

The school board as a group has been quite divisive in the past. What would you do to help remedy that?

Sometimes when I go to the school board meeting, I feel like I should bring popcorn and a soda, because it’s like watching a movie, watching the back and forth. Which isn’t good for our district. I think dialogue and discussion is healthy, but you have to respect your counterparts. They’re elected officials. They’re elected by the same population that hopefully would elect me. So I think just a healthy dose of respect would stop some of it. If there are differences in opinion, the people on the board need to behave like adults.

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