Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of two stories featuring candidates for Brookings School Board. One three-year school board post is up for grabs in the April 11 election. Vying for it are Jennifer Lacher-Starace and Kevin Sackreiter.

BROOKINGS – A father and a resource for SDSU faculty, Kevin Sackreiter is running for the school board to make his mark on Brookings’ future.

He wants to advance such priorities as improved access to the board and administrators and communication from the district and schools, as well as an egalitarian outlook on students and their families.

He’s running against Jennifer Lacher-Starace for the one school board position open this year, a three-year term.

Sackreiter has a doctorate in adult and higher educational administration from USD and a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in communication studies from SDSU. After earning his master’s, he lived in Aberdeen for about eight years, where he taught communications studies and speech courses at Northern State University.

Then he had the opportunity to work at SDSU at the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, a place dedicated to the professional development of faculty, providing them the resources they need to further themselves and their teaching.

“I knew and I think my wife knew – she never lived here – that this was a place we would want to raise our family. We viewed this as a more diverse community than Aberdeen, which surprised people when we came. I remember one of the first diversity conversations I had at SDSU, I said one of the reasons we moved here was because the perception outside of Brookings is that this is a more diverse community than many other places in the state of South Dakota. For having a multiracial family, that was something we were looking for,” Sackreiter said.

And what he loves about his job as the director for the Center for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning was the chance to impact each of the university’s students by aiding their faculty.

Faculty get to chose to come in to the Center; it’s not a punishment or required.

“But we stay plenty busy because we’ve developed a culture that really supports effective teaching and we have so many people at SDSU that really want to be strong teachers,” Sackreiter said. “And we get to work with that passion and get to provide them resources and help them out.”

The school board’s not all that different; as he sees it, the core job of the school board is to function as a resource and support for the work of school administrators and staff for the betterment of the students.

Because of that, his experience at the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning would transfer over well to a term on the school board, he said.

“My job at SDSU is to gather resources and provide those to faculty to help them do what they think will work best in their class. We don’t ever tell anybody this is what you have to do. We always say we’re going to give you lots of ideas; some might work, some might not, but you know what works best in your world. I think that’s the way a school board should function.”

It won’t come as a surprise then that he wants to find ways to encourage professional development of school staff and to bring innovative strategies and ideas into Brookings classrooms. One possible means of doing this could be making a professional development position in the school district.

“We have our curriculum director – who does a great job – but we don’t really have a dedicated professional development person,” he said.

Even though funds are tight, he thinks it’s well worth the price to support staff this way and support the ideas they’d like to bring into their classrooms.

His motivation for running this year is simple: it’s an important position with a big impact.

Sackreiter emphasizes decision making with equity in mind, looking out for each student and family’s needs and concerns. Not everybody has a voice, and it’s important that the district strive to enable these people to more easily interact with and communicate with the school district.

Part of that means taking care to make the school board, district leaders and school administrators as approachable as possible. Another part is making sure that the district is communicating with as many parents as possible, not just those who are consistently active in school happenings or have been in the community longest.

“We need to be really intentional about getting the right people around the table or … in the board meetings, who aren’t just going to come unless we identify this conversation really impacts you and try to get those voices around the table,” Sackreiter said. “If we haven’t, we need to stop and go find those voices and make sure that we’re representing everyone being impacted.”

On a similar note, issues of diversity weigh on his mind. With a multiracial family, he feels he can help advocate for underrepresented families within the community and keep their interests in mind when decision-making.

“I think I really have grown to understand the role of the school board. The school board’s role is to support families, students, staff by providing resources that allow all of them to thrive,” Sackreiter said.

“I really want families within this school district to feel like this school district has their interests at heart and our purpose is to make sure that they have whatever future it is they want and that we’re not doing anything that prevents them from being able to thrive.”

Contact Eric Sandbulte at esandbulte@brookingsregister.com.