So why did I do it? That’s the question I’m most often asked. Why did I run for the school board in another district? After all, didn’t I have enough drama in my life teaching at Rio Americano? Did I really need to take on the chaos and upheaval in another educational setting? Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. But serving on a school board has been the marriage of my two great passions in life: politics and education. In the many years that I have been teaching American Government to 12th graders, I have always preached about the virtues of citizenship and the often understated importance of local government. I would often tell my students that the decisions made in local government have a greater chance of affecting their day-to-day lives than those made at the national level. If sporting programs are cut, or if electives disappear, who made that decision? Not the President of the United States or Congress. Unless the government drafts you, and/or sends you off to war, your lives will be greatly impacted by an entity that you know nothing about. It is the government most closely associated with the “grassroots,” yet very few students (or even adults for that matter) seem to care, or become involved in, the decision-making process that affects us all. As Dwight Eisenhower once said, “Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen.” In many ways, I wanted to be a role model to my students to become more politically involved and take an affirmative step towards becoming active in their community. What better way to demonstrate that concept than to take “the plunge” myself and run for local office?