School Board Election: Laurie Kuna

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“We do a great job of educating the kids. Not that we can’t do better. Any school district can.” - Laurie Kuna

Candidate, Lowell Area Schools Board of Education

By Justin Tiemeyer
Contributing Writer

Laurie Kuna believes decades of experience as an educator give her a unique perspective on board matters

Laurie Kuna taught high school English at Lowell High School for 29 years, until she “retired” in 2010. The word “retired” is in scare quotes because Kuna never really put down her role as an educator. She has continued to coach volleyball for the better part of 35 years, she has been a board member for Lowell Arts, and she has served on the Lowell Area Schools Board of Education for twelve years.

“We do a great job of educating the kids,” Kuna said. “Not that we can’t do better. Any school district can.”
This is a refrain Kuna returns to. Things are good at Lowell Area Schools. There are challenges, and there is room for improvement, and every school experiences these things. It does not detract from the quality of the education that students receive in Lowell.

“I think once you believe that you’re as good as you’re ever going to get, that’s a fallacy,” Kuna said. “Then you begin to decay.”

Kuna’s decades of experience in the school district have given her a perspective on what works and what does not work. For example, when students transitioned from hand-written to word processed essays, Kuna noted that it made life easier for teachers. That was a good change. On the flip side, students in her English classes used to write a lot more, something that state testing and curriculum changes made less and less room for. Kuna believes students are not doing enough writing now, and they are going to lose out as a result.

“As a teacher, I think you do bring some extra insight into what goes on in the school district,” Kuna said.

The push to join the school board in 2012 came from Kuna’s good friend, Maureen Fleet, who, herself, was serving on the school board at the time. Kuna valued Fleet’s encouragement, but she also wanted to enter the race with eyes wide open. She sought the advice of Chris and Jill VanAntwerp before she committed to anything. Chris had served on the board for over a decade, and Jill had been the department chair when Kuna first started out teaching. While Jill looked up the practical requirements to run, Chris explained that many of the changes he wished to implement did not come to fruition until after he had left the board. “There’s no instant fixes” was the lesson Kuna learned.

When it comes to attempts to remove certain books from libraries labeled “pornographic” by detractors, Kuna believes the district has all of the tools it needs to make sure the libraries are stocked with all the right books, not just because the district has people and processes in place, but because those processes are based on decades of legal precedent. She referred to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller v. California, which established the Miller Test that the district currently uses. Kuna believes that some of the people attempting to remove books from Lowell libraries may be acting in bad faith.

“Let’s call it what it is,” Kuna said. “This has been an anti-education push in the guise of parental rights and protecting kids from pornography. Public schools have to serve the public. In order to do that, you have to have policies that are inclusive. Not everyone is the same. Our federal mandate, our state mandate, is that you educate every single kid that comes in that door, regardless of socioeconomics, religion, philosophy, all of those factors.”

Kuna’s broad perspective here applies to all of the questions The Lowell Ledger has been asking candidates about controversial public topics discussed online, like book banning, LGBTQ+ safe spaces, and Title IX changes.

As for the book banning attempts, a topic close to the English teacher’s heart, Kuna had some concerns about the arguments she has heard from her detractors. She believes the word “pornography” is only used to elicit a reaction when the school’s mandate according to Miller v. California is actually to prevent obscenity and protect the first amendment. There are accusations that administrators are taking away parents’ rights to control what their children are exposed to, and Kuna noted that there are more non-administrators on the review committee than administrators. Additionally, Kuna explained that the existing system allows parents 100 percent control of what their children access.

“Your child can be a senior in high school, and you, as a parent, can still call Christina Beachler and say, ‘I don’t want them reading about whales,’ or, ‘I don’t want them reading about rainbows,’ and they will block your kid’s access to that, if it’s electronic,” Kuna said. “If they bring the book up, she will say, ‘You know that your mom and dad don’t want you reading books on whales. I’m gonna have to call.’ There is no mechanism that’s not available to you, as an individual parent, to control your child’s education. You have that right. You just don’t have the right to tell my kids what they can read or not.”

It is unsurprising that Kuna focused on the incorrect argumentation behind the book banning debate - she has taught more than her fair share of current Lowell residents how to write a persuasive essay, after all - but at the end of the day, she finds it important to confront the negatives and move on. Any other perspective would leave you thinking that it’s all negative.

“What we as a school district need to keep in mind is that we are way, way, way better than what a certain group of people would like to make it seem,” Kuna said. “We have things we need to improve on, we have a responsibility to taxpayers to be fiscally responsible, but we do a great job of educating the kids.”

Laurie Kuna is one of five candidates running for four seats on the Lowell Area Schools Board of Education. The official ballot for the Tuesday, November 5, 2024 election also lists Parker Liu, but Liu suspended his campaign on Tuesday, August 6, 2024, citing family obligations. Of the remaining five, there are two challengers, and Kuna is one of three incumbents. In-person voting can be done on the Tuesday of the election or prior during Michigan’s early voting period, and many residents have already received their absentee ballots.