Following the 2024 Roseville Joint Union High School District (RJUHSD) school board elections, the Board Of Trustees gained three members, bringing with them their cumulative plans for the next four years as well as their dual perspectives as both parents and district employees.

Existing members of the school board, Pete Constant and Marla Franz, were rejoined by previous trustees, President Heidi Hall and board member Tiffany Coleman, as well as welcoming new board member, Bill Schuetz, after all three members were respectively sworn in at the district office on Dec. 17, 2024. The 2024 trustees will work to continue to protect and advocate for higher education during their 2024-2028 term.

During the 2024 voting season, revisions in how voters elected their representatives changed the voting experience for many and often confused some. Unlike the 2020 elections, RJUHSD is now divided into five trustee areas, with one board member representing each area. Candidates were now only campaigning to ⅕ of their previous voters instead of the whole district itself, making their election experience a little lighter.

“The smaller voter area meant I could cover a lot more ground. I had volunteers out walking every weekend leading up to the election and that was really helpful,” Hall said. 

Each board member has children that have either passed through the district or are currently attending school, giving them all more reason to serve on the school board.

“I chose to run because I’ve been a member of the community for 25 years … we depend on our community members to serve, and I felt like this was a good time for me to do that,” Coleman said.

Coleman views her vested role as both a parent and school board clerk as representing her community as well as the schools; she manages many issues involving the hiring of staff and the budget while using her knowledge as a parent to make the best decisions for students.

Similarly, the newest board member, Bill Schuetz, views his role on the board as a way to give back to his community by offering a parent perspective and having experience from previously serving on the Dry Creek school board for six years.

“I feel that serving on the school board is one of the best ways you can serve because of the impact it ultimately has on so many young people’s lives … I’m a strong advocate for education and so I saw this as an opportunity to jump in,” Schuetz said.

While planning the 2025-2026 school year, the new Board of Trustees will face many challenges with changes in many policies as well as curriculum updates and potential school boundary adjustments. The board has many important tasks that they must work together on to make the best choices for the district, and some tasks include hiring and evaluating the superintendent, creating obtainable goals for the district to work towards and making sure the RJUHSD community feels as though their thoughts and beliefs are being prioritized.

“I want to focus on ensuring that our allocation of resources go to where they need to … if you think about where all of our schools are located, they have very diverse populations and different needs. I want to make sure resources go where they are needed,” Schuetz said.

New policies concerning wellness centers, changes in required classes, recent state laws affecting classes students can take and issues with vaping amongst the district’s youth are the new board members biggest concerns, according to President Hall.

“I think in order to solve these issues, we first have to get to the bottom of why they are happening … Long-term planning, strategy, involving all educational partners and discussing how policy will affect all students and families is critical,” Hall said.

School board president is usually voted on by the current board members and often rotated throughout the years as different members take office, and Hall intends to make her time as president as impactful as she can, working for the success of both her district and her community.

Prior to the RJUHSD elections, a previous 2024 school board meeting passed a policy concerning the district’s wellness centers, which is still a concern to schools and the board today. The policy was implemented as a way to notify parents if their child went to receive care from a wellness center during the school day, affecting the number of students now going to the centers since this policy was put into place.

“I’m wondering, is it impacting students who are there to get services? I don’t get having any type of barrier to gaining support and we shouldn’t have those barriers. I think mental health is so important and I don’t care how far you are into your high school career, there’s all kinds of strains and stresses,” Schuetz said. “So I really want to work to ensure that our wellness centers are championed and that they are getting the resources they need to provide support.” 

Changes in curriculum and classes are also a main topic to be discussed at future board meetings. For the upcoming 2025-2026 school year, changes in the PE and the ethnic studies courses will also be occurring. PE will now be interchangeable with other activity-based classes such as dance or athletic PE. Ethnic studies will also be experiencing changes and while it will still be available, new state law requires that the district offer ethnic studies support to students by 2030. However, application of this may be delayed due to funding issues.

“The state said, yes, we’ll do this, but we’ll have to appropriately fund it, and they haven’t done that yet. It hasn’t been revoked, it just hasn’t been put in place yet, and it is dependent on the state giving them the appropriate budget for it … It’s just in a little bit of a holding pattern,” Coleman, a previous Curriculum and Instruction Leadership Team (CILT) liaison, said.

CILT works to align the district in what is taught in various classes by making sure all classes have the same course descriptions, textbooks, and approval from the board. 

“I’ve really noticed that CILT is just taking advantage of the expertise that is seen across the school district, that comes from many different schools. And when you have all of that professional talent coming together, it’s really beneficial. There’s some really good ideas that come out of it,” Coleman said.

Many Board of Trustees have stated how they have valued their colleagues and plan to work together to make effective school improvement policies. 

“We are representatives from the public’s representative of the district and we’re doing a lot of great things as a district … There may be some things we disagree about throughout the process but really being part of the board means having different views and viewpoints,” Schuetz said.

Having all members of the board come together with their different beliefs and opinions is really important to diversifying the outcomes of school board meetings. In order to make sure the priorities of the RJUHSD community are the foremost goal of the board, it is necessary to have the most cohesive team representing the district and running the schools.

“Everybody has kind of an area that they’re really good at and I like that, because I have some things that I’m really good at, and then I kind of feel like I don’t have to be good at everything.” Coleman said.

She believes that her colleagues are highly beneficial to the overall success of the district and values everyone’s ability to recognize each other’s different opinions in order to work together to create the best possible school district for the RJUHSD students.

“We have different ideas, different viewpoints, but we have a trust between us that’s important to have,” Coleman said. “[RJUHSD’s school board members are] just so professional in the work that they do and thoughtful, and I’m really impressed with them.”