Schools
Incoming Hartland School Board Member to Bring Mix of Experience
Cyndi Kenrick is a stay-at-home mom and a former counselor.
Hartland’s newly elected school board member is a former at-risk teen counselor turned stay-at-home mom of four who says she’s eager to serve the community but acknowledges it won’t be easy during this time of probable budget cuts.
“As much as I’m excited to be a school board member, it’s a tough time to do it,” said Cyndi Kenrick, who received more than 1,950 votes according to unofficial results Tuesday in an election in which voters also renewed a non-homstead millage.
Kenrick, 47, will take the spot now held by Elsie McPherson-Brown, who she would not to seek re-election. The four-year term begins July 1.
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"We welcome Cyndi Kenrick to the Board of Education," said Superintendent Janet Sifferman in an email to Hartland Patch. "The administration is looking forward to working with her as a member of the Hartland schools’ leadership team."
The Hartland resident says her experience as a parent volunteer and PTO president will help her lobby against the cuts because they give her examples to show why K-12 education needs more support in Lansing.
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“Don’t raid the K-12 fund,” said Kenrick of plans to shift some of that money for colleges and universities, adding to take the money away would sap resources to prepare children for those schools.
Echoing the position of current administration, Kenrick noted the $7 million in cuts the district has already done the past decade including privatization of custodians and consolidating bus service countywide. The district faces losing as much as $4.1 million if Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan is approved — a plan that would mean pay and benefit cuts next year for employees with severe reductions to programs and increased class sizes like in 2012-13, officials have said.
"Hartland has done so well," she said, adding residents haven't paid as much attention as a result and don't realize what they'll be losing such as how teachers routinely take extra time with children on an individual basis.
Her four children are all students at Hartland schools — she has a fourth-grader at where she was PTO president, a fifth-grader at and a freshman and junior at .
Her husband Joe works in medical sales. They’ve lived in the for the past seven years.
Before she became a mom, Kenrick, who earned a degree in psychology from Wayne State University, worked for about five years as a counselor who helped troubled teens as a counselor for Vista Maria in Dearborn.
She said part of what makes Hartland a great district — in addition to its athletics and extra curricular activities — are the programs the district has to helped youth who need extra assistance. They range from outreach to troubled youth to ways to challenge both average and gifted kids.
“Not all kids can learn in the same environment,” she said.
Kenrick said one thing she learned as a counselor was that you can reach almost any child if given the opportunity.
“Kids who have behavioral problems, they’re not necessarily bad kids, they’re in difficult environments,” she said.
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