Superintendent candidate Lisa Riggs said earning the position with the Lynden School District would mean returning home.
Riggs, a Washington native, grew up and began her career in education in Port Angeles. She said she wants to work in a smaller school district where she can get to know the students, staff and community more personally.
In her 30 years in education, her administrative roles have taken her to some small, rural districts and some large, urban districts in Nevada, Texas and Oregon.
“I can come back home and make Washington feel like where I’m connected,” Riggs said at her March 30 community forum at Lynden Middle School.
She said her experience and education connections at the national level will help her to improve and advocate for Lynden’s local needs.
Riggs knows the Lynden superintendent position won’t be easy and that it will take time to build relationships and trust, but she is hopeful that she will get to join the community and help educate its next generation. She knows there will be disagreements and frustration, but Riggs said she embraces the conflict, when constructive.
“I realized the work doesn’t get done until you bring in differing opinions,” Riggs said. “You listen and you navigate and you come to a consensus. You work through the tough solutions.”
The knowledge that supporting students is at the heart of the disagreements is what encourages Riggs to have those tough conversations. Her goal is equity for all students.
“Everyone has the right to be their best, feel a sense of belonging, have a connection to their school, have the systems in places if there are needs to reach a highest potential and that all students trust their teachers and principals and schools, and truly, that is equity,” she said.
Riggs said in her role as a public servant, it’s important to have an open-door policy and be transparent about how the district operates and makes complex and, often, controversial decisions.
One of her goals is to help design the “portrait of a Lynden graduate.”
“It’s what are the attributes, the dispositions, the behaviors, the skills that your graduate has,” she said. “We need to ensure that we can get to that goal, that target, and we need to make sure that those things are put in place into our programming.”
Riggs applied this mindset when she previously worked in an administrative role in San Antonio and was given more than 50 initiatives to improve the school district. While she did not fix all 50 in three years, she helped raise the district’s national rating from an F to a B. She said that level of work doesn’t need to happen in Lynden, as they are already passing, but she will work hard to strengthen the district.
The board of directors will convene tomorrow, March 31, to announce the newest superintendent of Lynden School District. Riggs, David VanderYacht and Tavis Peterson are the three remaining candidates for the position.
