Also read the interview with the other School Board candidate for this position, Scott Heinze.

“My father was a fisher man, my mother was a vender. How did I get to be at the University of Puget Sound as a distinguished professor?” Dexter Gordon asked me in our interview.

I sat down with Dexter (to talk about just this) at the Forza coffee near 21st and Pearl. It was a [Monday] evening, and the place was almost empty when I walked in. Gordon was waiting for me in one of the comfy chairs, wearing a suit jacket over his campaign T-shirt. Unfortunately, I had to move him to a less comfortable location in order to be sure my recording device would pick up everything, but he was good humored about it, and when properly arranged at the back of the café the recording worked perfectly.

Meeting with Dexter one-on-one was interesting because of all the candidates I interviewed he came across most differently in a private setting. This is not to say that he seemed like a different person, in both public and private he has always been kind, confident, and funny, but when I’ve seen Gordon in front of a crowd his voice boomed and he spoke with a drive and a purpose. He has a Jamaican accent, and it is incorporated perfectly into the cadence of his speech, holding your attention as his voice booms across the room. Gordon has taught public speaking classes, and knows how to send a clear message to his audience.

At Forza Gordon was not giving me a campaign speech. He relaxed, he was soft-spoken, he let his mind wander a bit more and found the point of what he was saying while telling me his stories, rather than speaking with the intent mission of the campaign.

The only moment when he slipped up, and fell into campaign mode, was when he asked that question. “My father was a fisher man, my mother was a vender. How did I get to be at the University of Puget Sound as a distinguished professor?”

I’ve heard him ask it rhetorically to crowds, and he always gives the same answer “Public education.” Sure, this is nice when you’re running for school board, and he does have great experiences from public education that changed his life, but while I sat across from Gordon he told me a much broader story, with many more details, that gave me a much better idea of how he ended up where he is today. Our time was limited, so I never got the full story of how he came here to Washington, started up his family, or was hired by the University of Puget Sound (UPS), but I did learn a lot about his character, and how he views the world.

Gordon was born and raised in Jamaica, as part of a very large family (he was number 7 of 14! With two more half siblings born after his mother passed).

“It was a household where politics, religion, culture, sports, always right at the competitive edge. Because you’ve got to find a competitive edge, whether who could eat the fastest, who could sing the best, who could do the most tricks. That’s when I found my sister could put her tongue at the top of her nose, found out one sister could wiggle her ear. Oh, we did it all.”

This natural competitiveness was fostered by his family, and it was one of two experiences in his early childhood that shaped his future.

“I was in public school, in grade 5, when Phyllis Jennings grabbed me by the hand – and she was not gentle – and she said ‘You have something, and you are going to shape up’” Phyllis Jennings was his 5th grade teacher – and Dexter used her as the example of how a teacher should make a difference in a child’s life. She was not willing to watch him fail. “That was part of my first memory of an awakening and I started shaping up from there.”

But his natural competitiveness also played a role.

“I remember that before that, I think there were 66 children in our class, and Ina Fulga* and I tied for 33rd, and she said I copied from her work! That was one motivation, because as I came to be aware of myself, I am a very competitive person. And so once Ina Fulga said that, I knew that was the last time I was going to share company at that level. From that point on the lowest I ever performed in any class was 4th. I was always struggling for 1st or 2nd.”

Gordon really loved his public education in Jamaica, and he wasn’t shy of saying that Jamaica on the whole took public education more seriously than many school districts here in America. Because Jamaica is part of the British school system, they label levels differently, and I won’t lie when I say I didn’t really understand them all. But the “O” level was the end of high school, and according to Gordon, the content learned in “O” level was like going through community college, rather than just high school.

“Especially towards the end of high school, your life is about school… In the British system, when you get from O level, the way teachers talk about O level you know that your life is going to end if you don’t pass it… In Jamaica high schools, the principle comes through every class that’s preparing for O levels you get that stern lecture, and you are scared,” he chuckled while he said this, “I’m telling you, you are scared. The pressure is so immense.”

Gordon appreciates that his pubic education demanded so much of him. He appreciates that his elementary teacher called him out on not doing well enough, and that the culture of his high school didn’t allow for drop outs or incompletes. He liked that his principal took the time to visit each class and prepare them for their future. This could be because Gordon was competitive by nature, and the teachers were challenging him to do better. Even though he did end up incredibly busy, that didn’t mean he didn’t have any fun. Any average day looked like:

“When I was in high school I was doing A work on subjects, and school ended at 3:15, and then I had soccer or cricket practice, and that would take me to 6:30, and then it took at least 2 hours to get home, because I had to walk about 3 miles to the train station, take the train 15 miles, and then we may or may not get a ride – what we call a robo, a taxi that picks up to it’s full – to go the last three miles home. Most times it was running or walking… Towards the end of high school it was midnight before I was done with my math and my Spanish homework.” I asked him if everyone’s commute to and from school was similar, and while he said yes he chuckled as he qualified it a bit, “you’re not rushing home, there were things to talk about after practice, with your friends”

This was pretty much the end to the “public education” story. This was the foundation of his education and experience that set him up for his future. I would like to contend, though, that he learned just as much in the next few years of life when he shared a universal experience: entering the real world.

“I went to work straight after high school. I had expected to get a job in a government office, and instead I ended up on the wharf, and it was a very interesting job because I walked into this job and the people in the office – these are people who are not… Not… Well, it’s kind of a rough set up… There’s a lot of rough and tumbling, tough guys. Here was I, a young kid out of high school, walking into this office declaring that I was a Christian, and the guys in the office said we’ll give you two weeks to give up. That’s tough. So that was my introduction to the world of work.”

He stayed at the wharf for a couple of months before being able to move onto somewhere else. “As it turns up, I was wrongly placed. Did I ever feel wrongly placed!”

Next he worked in the “clock of courts” (which in America would be called the DA’s office). “That was one of my passions, law. I actually began to learn law, and eventually started prosecuting what we call simple, petty cases, what petty sessions court. I moved up to where I was presenting cases in court.”

“I learned it in the system, and in fact it was an interesting thing because at the time I planned and hoped to go to law school. The head judge at the time identified about five of us. She said, her name was resident magistrate Madge Morgan*… She said, that she wanted to talk to the law school… She proposed to the law school that they accept us, five of us, in the law program based on our experience working in the courts. And they said no. We had to matriculate through the traditional pattern of getting A levels, which is part of the British system.

“[Madge Morgan] was mad, and I was disappointed, and I think that’s when I turned away from law… The reason she was hopping mad and we were disappointed and turned away… is that we were the ones who trained the graduates from the law school how to do the actual work in the courts. And so, it was infuriating.”

Vialle never sent me a picture, so I borrowed this campaign one from the internet.

Karen Vialle was introduced to me as a “bulldog,” her supporters have called her efficient and tough, and the TNT endorsed here whole-heartedly as a “a force of nature. Her qualifications are almost over the top.” There’s no denying she is experienced in policy and budget issues (if you doubt me I’ll send you her 20 minute answer to “Tell me about yourself”), and she’s familiar with Tacoma schools because she has taught as a substitute teacher in them for 9 years. Heck, she’s taught every grade level. And on top of it all, she’s the only candidate raising money in her race, allowing her to print doorbell cards and send out mailers to voters.

Now, don’t get confused, this is not an endorsement or intended as support. This is just my way of explaining Vialle having conquered 53% of the vote in a four way primary.

However, when I interviewed Vialle the primary election hadn’t happened yet. At the time I knew very little about her other than the fact that she had once been mayor and had recently been compared to a bulldog.

I don’t really have a mental image of a bulldog floating in my head (having no real experience with them), so I let Wikipedia do the talking. There I learned that according to the American Kennel Club (AKC) a Bulldog’s, “disposition should be equable and kind, resolute and courageous (not vicious or aggressive), and demeanor should be pacific and dignified.”

Vialle met me at Cutter’s Point on 6^th and Orchard. I’m not sure if she exemplifies all of the adjectives above, but she was definitely friendly, and after ordering coffee we sat down to chat. Another adjective that strikes me when I think of Vialle is practical. I never remember exactly what she wears (I’ve seen her in everything from a suit to doorbelling clothes) but it has always seems to be pants, a jacket, her shirt tucked in, and comfortable shoes. These first impressions did not answer the bulldog question, but throughout the interview I kept it in mind.

The first part of the answer to this mystery came when I asked her when the first time she knew she was different. There was hardly a pause at all before Vialle said, “Probably when I was a social justice enforcer in my fourth grade class.” I think I laughed, because the image that came to my head was a lot more like what you’d see on TV than in real life, and it all seemed much too serious for a fourth grader. Vialle explained the situation:

“I guess that’s the best way I can put it… I never grew up with any kind of racial prejudice, thank god, on the part of both sides of my family… And we had an African American family move into our neighborhood, and there was a lot of, I’d call them rednecks now, even though ‘they shoudda known better,’ as my dad said. So when school started (they moved in in the summer) my dad told me, ‘If there’s any trouble, you take care of it.’ Well, sure enough there was. One of these kids—and she was a bully! She was a big girl, a lot bigger than me. And she probably still remembers what happened–she called, you know, used the inappropriate word, and made Jolene cry. And I said, ‘Take it back,’ and she said, ‘I don’t have to,’ and I said ‘Take it back or I’m going to hit you.’ And she didn’t believe me, so she wound up with a bloody nose and a split lip.

“And I, of course, got sent to the office, because it was an inappropriate response, but I still remember my mom coming up to school, and laying into our principal, who she had gone to school with. His first name was Clarence, and all I could hear was ‘Yes, Clarence, Karen needs to be punished, but more than that, our society is changing, and people need to be treated equal and children don’t need to come to school and listen to that. Now I expect you to take care of it.’ And that was my mother. I mean, she did that. And so that’s when I first really realized that I did the right thing. I mean, I got in trouble for hitting, you know, but I mean my mom and dad both said that you did the right thing.”

And then, offhand, she added:

“Also, I was good in math, and girls weren’t supposed to be.”

In retrospect, the first story is an amusing anecdote not just because it represents Vialle’s first experience as an activist, but also because it shows her perspective now as a teacher looking back on her time as a student. There were several instances later in the interview when she grew passionate and used a “bad word” like “sucks,” and it was always followed “I hate that term, I tell the kids at school ‘don’t say that!’” and I found it to be an enduring view of vocabulary reserved for elementary school teachers (which Vialle primarily is). In a similar vein, hearing her using words like “inappropriate response” and “diversity” and “prejudice” sound very adult in a story about an elementary school squabble. Vialle’s conversation consistently juxtaposed complex policy terms and a child’s world where saying “sucks” gets you yelled at.

To be honest, though, Vialle’s offhand comment about being the only girl good at math was a much more honest moment. The first story could have been part of her campaign, that one moment revealed a struggle she had lived through, and a lot of the activism she would take on later.

But to continue with the story: the fact that Vialle was good at math and had conviction for standing up for what she thought was right, created a powerhouse combination that set her on her career path. Her 20 minute answer to “Tell me about yourself” was pretty much a long-form resume, and while I don’t want to repeat it step for step there are interesting points along the way.

After graduate school she returned to her undergrad Alma matter and taught political science at the University of Puget Sound. This was one of her first experiences as an adult, dealing with being a non-traditional women. “When I went to UPS I was one of the first women to teach there in the non—what they called non-female, you know, it wasn’t a foreign language and they had home-economics then and English—to teach outside of that box.”

Soon after that Vialle was the first women hired by the state budget office to work as a program analyst at OFM. She started in ‘72, and was promoted to assistant director in February of 73. Her explanation of what that experience was:

“The legislature was considering a bill upstairs and it was really important and our legislative person had not been doing what he was supposed to… [Someone she knew] called ‘get over here, I want this bill out of here and it’s about to not!’ So I went up and I testified and thought ‘oh, man I’m going to be in trouble,’ and when I came down and Wally said, ‘Oh, man from now on as of right now you’re handling all of our legislative stuff.’ And then about a month later we got all these bills out, it was amazing.”

Vialle took on a tough role at OFM, dealing with a tight budget and budget cuts, and took the job and responsibility of helping to balance the budget very seriously. “We were a real budget and management agency under Dan Evans. You saw us show us you knew your job might be in jeopardy, including department heads. I’d tell ‘em, I’d say ‘You know If I were you I’d get my stuff cleaned up or you’re going to be over there—and the Governor said to tell you—peddling your resume at 5 o’clock in the afternoon down on 11th and capitol. Now, you can either talk to me and get it together or you can talk to [the Governor}.’”

From there she did a lot of budget work and made connections to powerful folk in state government who helped her get other positions where she was able to further expand her knowledge of budgets and policy. To sum up the rest:

"And then we adopted our first child, so I went home. Then I went back to teaching part time at UPS and got involved in community activities, I was on Urban Policy Committee and when my kids got old enough we adopted another child a year and a half later, so you know I got into the PTA, preschool and all of that, and then in 1987 there was a city council seat on the west side of Tacoma and a lot of people in the community convinced me that I needed to run, and so I did and got into that, and then got elected mayor.”

This is a different moment in her life where two seemingly different worlds are brought together. Vialle had returned home to be a mother, but instead of falling back into the traditional role of managing the household she once again resorted to her passion for politics and policy.

I asked Vialle about what it was like to be a woman mayor who was willing to be different, do a lot of things first, and be good at math. The traits that Vialle had that helped her get that far—being tough, efficient, and determined—made her time as mayor interesting:

“When I was mayor it was harder because I got picked on much more by people who were looking for you to stub your toe… and if you were strong you were regarded as being kind of a witch [this was clearly a euphemism, Vialle says euphemisms fantastically], you know, and if you’d been a male you would have received accolades.”

“It was an acceptance that you had to do better, and prove yourself, and I was willing to do that and show them, ‘Hey, I’m just as good as you are.’ If I have to work harder, and if I did that and show that I’m just as good as them, then it was going to make it easier for somebody else who came behind me… I kinda look back and think, ‘Hey, it was worth all that, to be a part of opening doors.’”

While she served as mayor from 1990-1994, Vialle lost her re- lection campaign. I don’t know what the political issues of the time were, but she was the only person I interviewed this year who had run for election before, and it was interesting to get her perspective on what it’s like to experience having lost (which is an experience most candidates share).

“I think what it is, when you run for office—If you’re a bit of a control freak, and I tend to be a tad bit—is that it’s something you can’t control. But I came to grips with this when I lost… I look back on that… I’ve done that my whole life, and if I have done my absolute best, and this was my dad, if you have done your best… then don’t look back.”

“When I lost that election—really truly, I’m my toughest critic, my husband will tell you that—I looked back and I thought I did everything that I could do and the results were out of my hands.”

“It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, it hurt for a long time. Losing, as somebody said, sucks. It does. I hate that term, I tell the kids at school ’don’t say that!’… But on the other hand, I walked away knowing that I made a tremendous difference…And people have aid later ‘you should run for mayor again,’ and my philosophy on that is that if you’ve already done something, you can’t go back. Things have changed, the dynamics, and it’s time for someone else to do it. I was proud of being mayor of this city, I love this city.”

Now she’s up for election again. It doesn’t seem like a step down, or a step backwards, but rather a continuation of her story in life.

“You know it wasn’t a real easy decision to do that. I’d thought about it, intellectually it was, but then you go back and think… you know, campaigning is hard. It’s a strain on everybody, your family and it’s a big commitment. But every time I thought, you know, I make the decision all through the fall, and I see these kids struggling at school, at you know, lack of support from the board, and them being in total denial about what’s going on within the schools. I thought, you know, I’ve got one more shot at making a big difference, and that’s always driven me in my whole life.”

I have a lot of quotations from Vialle about making a difference driving her. She grew up in the civil rights area and was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and J.F.K. She protested against the Vietnamese war, and is incredibly passionate about supporting soldiers and veterans rights. She taught her children to be accepting of others, and they have in turn become “social justice enforcers” at their own schools, making sure that kids aren’t being bullied or put down because they’re different. She works hard subbing in elementary schools and doing her darndest to prepare young children for the future.

I’ll let you decide for yourself what sort of dog is the best comparison for Karen Vialle (you know, if you insist on not mixing metaphors). I certainly haven’t made up my mind yet on what sort of person (or canine) she is. Looking back, it’s amusing that at the time I interviewed her she said things like “Right now I’m about ready to jump out of my skin. Tuesday can’t get here soon enough!” but having looked over everything she said, I don’t want to end this on a political note (even though there’s a pretty good political monologue I have hanging about). I don’t think politics is the end all be all for this former mayor. I think she’s really doing it for the kids.

“You feel empowered every time you go into a class room and teach kids. Last time I felt empowered, oh my gosh… I guess I’ve always in my life felt empowered in the sense that you can make a difference. You don’t have to hold public office, you don’t have to be walking around with everyone walking around saying ‘Mayor’ and ‘your honor.’ …. For me I feel empowered when I am able to help someone, or I can speak out for something, or I can help a family find help at one of my schools, or when the kids will come up to you and say thank. I think to me empowerment is a state of mind.”




Fun facts about Karen Vialle:

Scott Heinze with his Children

When Scott Heinze says, “It’s not differences that drive us apart, it’s really commonality and appreciation of differences that bring us together,” there is a passion to his words that forbid them from being cheesy.

As a child he played a lot of sports: basketball, baseball, football. When he talks about his leadership style now he compares it to how sports teams work together. “Having been on a lot of sports teams, that idea of organizationally building teams, community building teams, you don’t want everyone who has the same skill set or thinks the same way. That’s not the most effective team. If you can bring together people who have different thoughts and experiences you’re going to be really well rounded.”

Now Heinze strives to be a team builder in his role as a servant leader – something he is focusing on both in his graduate studies and in life – and explained to me that, “as a servant leader I was being involved in my community, trying to encourage others to have a vested interest In their community.” He sets an example for his children by always thinking about “How do you give back, how do you get involved, how do you make a difference?”

I had never heard of Gonzaga’s leadership program, or it’s jargony terms like “operators,” “conceptualizers,” or “servant leadership” before I met with Scott Heinze. To be completely unfair, I had never bothered putting much stalk in leadership programs, and did not expect to care about any of these terms when Heinze first described them to me.

Then again, I had met Heinze on his campaign trail before, and there was plenty to this interview that was not what I expected.

Heinze showed up to the meeting wearing running shorts, a hoodie and a baseball cap, and when he sat down he relaxed back into his seat, completely casual. I had only seen him before at speaking engagements—strictly business casual apparel with that stuffy networking vibe. This was different. The Scott Heinze before me was a guy taking time out of his (busy) Saturday schedule to have a chat about how he lives his life.

The fact is, Heinze lives his life like a policy wonk. This translates to a person who simply knows a lot of things and feels compelled to give incredibly thorough, well thought out, and oftentimes long answers. So, during particularly long answers to questions his voice can create that soft lull we’re all familiar with from lectures of history or science.

But don’t be fooled into boredom or nod off while he speaks! There is more behind this man than policy! I mean, sometimes you have to wade through several levels of policy, but eventually you break through.

For example, in his initial efforts to explain himself, his doctoral program’s jargon comes in. Heinze explained that there are operators and conceptualizers, he being the latter. “Conceptualizers often times will get in as a change agent and say and do things that feel very radical to the establishment.” I actually find this to be interesting stuff, but this excerpt is also a bit text booky:

“In a typical organizational chart you would have this person at the top, this very hierarchical, linear system, and the person at the top has all of the authority to make all of the decisions, and they push that down. Servant leadership really flattens the organization chart. It invites everyone to be in part of the decision making process and they feel empowered with what’s going on.”

Again, this is interesting to me, after all, leaders aren’t well-known for giving their power away; much less give it away to achieve results. However, when Heinze speaks he often starts by explaining definitions and situations (this is a very policy thing to do), and I feel a little detached by the whole thing. It is only after he has explained all the details that he tells you a story that shows you what they mean. For example:

During his time as an Assistant Director of Outreach at Kent Youth and Family Services, where the residents were primarily immigrant and political refugees, Heinze was the daily operations guy who oversaw a diverse group of staff members. His goal was to empower his staff, and he told them, “you know your residents and participants the best, because you see them on a daily basis.” He gave his staff the opportunity to have impact on services and programs. “And it really, in the staff, inspired them to come up with new and innovative ways to deliver programs, and so it became meaningful to them. If they had to work longer hours to do that they were included to because they’d become so invested in it.”

“That’s how you get meaningful results – you include all of the stake holders and you give them authentic voice and you listen to what they have to say and you assign them responsibility.” (I make this bold because of the great amounts of conviction this line was spoken with, and also because I believe this one sentence was more powerful then his entire, original definition of what it meant to be a servant leader).

Heinze sees servant leadership as the way to empower people to do more and to become invested in their community. It is entirely possible that his commitment to servant leadership comes from the servant leaders who have empowered him.

As mentioned earlier, Heinze played sports. When asked what his favorite was he swiftly and decisively stated “Baseball.” He played baseball up until college, when he got injured. “I was no longer able to play and complete, but still had that inner desire to compete but was no longer certain how to channel it.”

It was at this point where his high school coach invited him back onto the team as an assistant coach. His old coach, and good friend, allowed him to take ownership of part of the program. “Certain parts of the program that were just mine, that I could just take and run and do what I wanted.”

“I didn’t understand it at the time, but in retrospect now I understand what an incredible act of servant leadership it was for him to give up control and authority of a part of his program that he worked hard to build. And it’s interesting too, I find myself as I get older, I turned 39 in June, of kind of bench marking the people who have been influential in my life, and going back to where they were at my age. So he was about 39 when he gave me that opportunity. So it’s just interesting to go back and think about it… and I use that to inform how I try to be.”

While Heinze provided many examples of how he lives his life now as a servant leader, his coach was one of the first people to empower him the way he seeks to empower others.

“It was such a selfish act [from my coach]. It didn’t require a whole lot of him other than a fundamental decision that he saw in me something he could trust and nature and mentor, and it did wonders for me in that I in turn create that relationship with the players I was coaching.”

As Heinze said about training activists during his work with the American Diabetes Association, “It was incredibly empowering because we did a lot around training… that transfer of knowledge and of experience and skill set was great… It was humbling and empowering to be able to create this multiplying effect and now 300 people have gone to the hill (in Washington DC), and will go back to their individual communities across the country to continue to do what they had just done.”

Heinze’s coach had empowered him to take on more responsibility, and helped him become a leader. In turn, Heinze is now able to take his skills and confidence, and train other people to be leaders in their own communities. This is what he is talking about when he speaks about servant leadership, and what he wants to bring to the Tacoma School Board.

All of Heinze’s experience within policy (he has worked for Congressman Adam Smith and Governor Gregiore) did not show him what it was like to be a politician, “I just assumed having been on the policy side that if I ever ran I would, you know, just instinctively know what to do on the campaign side – and that wasn’t the case.” Policy workers are, for the most part, behind the scenes providing support. As a politician you are the one in the open whose ideas are being judged. “For me there was this incredible feeling of vulnerability, of being exposed.”

How does he deal with that pressure?

“I’ve tried to run my campaign how I try to live my life – it’s open and transparent… This is who I am, this is how I live my life, this is how I envision serving as an elected official. And If that resonates with people, if they feel like they can trust me and they want me in that position then they can vote for me. And if they don’t then they won’t. But I’m going to be authentic to myself… It’s just me on the phone. It’s just me when someone walks up and asks me a question.”

“It’s so time intensive, but those most time intensive parts are probably the piece I like best about the campaign… those opportunities to doorbell, to sit and listen to people and hear their concerns, to answer questions they might have. That’s been the most rewarding part.”

Ten fun facts about Scott Heinze:
1. For the meeting he drank a short Americano with cream.
2. He is left handed.
3. His first job was at “The Dog’s Ear,” a T-shirt printing company in Spokane.
4. His favorite sport is baseball.
5. His favorite subject in school was current world affairs.
6. He lives in the Proctor District.
7. At the time of the interview, when asked if he had pets, he responded, “What, did my kids plant this question?” His children have been bothering him for pets. Since then, his son got a hamster for his 8th birthday.
8. The most exciting place he has ever been was at President Obama’s inauguration.
9. His parents were very protective and did not let him watch scary movies.
10. If he could give to just one charity it would be the one he is most active in: the American Diabetes Association.

Andrew Milton and his family

When asked about who, amongst all fictional characters, Andrew Milton would want to be, he replied “the John Cusack character in Gross Point Blank… Martin Blank. (That’s bad though, he’s an assassin.)” Certainly his assassin traits were not the ones Milton wanted to emulate.   “[John Cusack] is a funny, calm, but rather independent actor who gets to be in charge on his own terms.”

These characteristics that Milton admires in Cusack are the ones he strives to bring out in himself. He doesn’t see himself as a politician (“I don’t like politics per se”), he is a person who is working to stand up for teachers.

With the last 41 years, one way or another, being involved in schools Milton has a “teacher’s sense.” Working right now as an 8th grade language arts teacher, he views part of the  bureaucracy of his school district as a challenge for teachers. In his blog “Speaking of education” you can read about his concerns with programs like the Common Core, and how he worries that good ideas can turn into regulations poorly imposed.

“There are lots of mandates that come down. I would say be careful on how much we mandate and how we implement mandates,  ’cause if you mandate four different areas… eventually the teachers are like ‘how do I deal with that?” When comparing this to the possibility of “being in charge on his own terms,” Milton sees the later as an opportunity for himself (and all teachers) to do their work, and implement the larger ideas, in a way that works best for them.

In additional to public school teaching, Milton currently works at Troy University on Joint Base Lewis McChord, and in the past he spent time as a visiting professor at the University of Puget Sound. I asked him about the switch from UPS to teaching junior high. It was in part because he was working at UPS as a guest professor, in part because he didn’t want to move for another job, and in part because he thought he might make more of an impact in public schools.

“Actually I found that it is in some ways much more appealing – you really are contributing – even if just a small bit – it is easier to tell you are contributing to someone. UPS graduates are effective students by and large and are going to go be assertive, even aggressive, out in the world and are going to be fine… Students who maybe aren’t as effective actually need better teachers.”

To describe Milton’s commitment to helping people, particularly children, I would like to point out something about our meeting. I had not met Andrew Milton before this interview, and I recognized him more by the almost-four-year old boy he had told me would be coming with him than by his picture in my voter’s pamphlet. He had brought his son, Peter, with him because he agreed to meet me on short notice.

There is something very obvious about Peter: he is black, Milton and his wife are not. I did not need to ask (and I did not ask) whether or not Peter was adopted, but it came up in passing that he was and that he is originally from Atlanta. I did not ask about why Andrew and his family chose to adopt another child (he has two teenage children), but as I talked with Andrew about his life and his desires, he explained his philosophy: he supports specific work getting done for people – the process of meeting people’s needs.

It was hard for Milton to name just one charity, when asked, that he would give money to. He supports Children’s International, orphanages, someone he knows doing work in Thailand. Milton has gone on mission trips and helps out his local community through his church. He is passionate about making sure every child has what they need, to the point where he welcomed another child into his family to give him love and support.

And so, after years of commitment towards providing for children, time analyzing challenges that face schools on his blog, the desire to stand up for teachers, and with a good sense of humor, Milton entered into the race for Tacoma School Board, position 3.

The fact is, not many people know what it’s like to run for office. Since filing, Milton has had the opportunity to learn what it means:

“You file for the office – to run for office – online. So I filled out the, you know, and there’s a submit button at the bottom. And I think I sat there for hours. I couldn’t click the submit button. So I finally clicked and I thought, ‘Where’s the back button!?’

“You’re out there trying to win approval from people. You spend your life raising up your children, raising up your students, saying ‘You shouldn’t … Don’t get thrown in with needing approval’ and here I am saying, won’t 51% of you approve me please?’ It’s stressful in that way.

“It’s been good exercise to face that not everyone’s going to vote for me, not everyone’s going to like me. It’s good exercise in facing that not everyone’s going to like you – and that’s okay.”

Milton handles the pressure by understanding his priorities. He explained how he went on a vacation for five days just three weeks before the primary. It was a family vacation they had planned since November, and while he now felt a lot of pressure to stay and campaign, he knew the race can’t be everything. “I only checked my e-mailed once while I was gone.”

Andrew Milton can work hard running for office, and he would like your vote, but that is not how he defines his life. Like John Cusack’s character Martin Blank, Milton wants to live his life on his own terms, and his terms have a lot more to them than being a politician. They are about spending time with his family and friends, and doing his best to sustain others’ needs.




10 fun facts about Andrew Milton: