Anderson, Kelli

Meet the Candidate

Running For:

School Board

District:

Queen Creek Unified School District

Age:

Occupation:

Turning Point Action CTV

Education:

I graduated from the University of Oregon with a BA in Psychology (concentration in early childhood development) and Social Science (concentration in history)

Family:

I have been married for 20 years and we have 3 children.

Religion:

Christian

Biographical Info:

My husband and I have known each other since high school, have been married for 20 years, and we have 3 children together. I am a US Army Veteran, University of Oregon graduate, and dedicated wife and mother. I have always been involved in my community, and passionate about keeping up to date on current events and the ways in which they impact us in our daily lives. I love that my job at Turning Point Action allows me to speak directly to the community I live in, and help affect real change locally.

We relocated from Oregon to Arizona in 2017 and made it our first priority to find schools for our kids, then to search for a home in that area. Our children attended school in QCUSD until 2021, when we realized that each of our children were being underserved in different ways. We then chose to homeschool them. Even though we were outside the system, I still paid attention to what my friends and their children were struggling with in the district. When the opportunity arose, I stepped up to help fix the shortfalls in the system that made us choose differently, as well as the new struggles that are pushing other families to consider leaving the district.

I am blessed with a husband who supports me in every way he can, and children who have been our greatest blessings in life. I want to work to make the world we hand them better than the one we were handed.

Statement:

I believe that education provides the foundation for the whole of our society. We either reap the benefits of success or the consequences of the failures of properly educating and preparing the next generation of innovators, doctors, politicians, educators, and businessmen. The goal of education should be to prepare the next generation to take control of our infrastructure, education, government, medical care, and businesses. For years, the education system has been cluttered with the noise of ideological influence and the educational outcomes have suffered for that. We must refocus our education system back to teaching literacy and critical thinking skills. If our system fails to produce a generation of young adults who have the literacy skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills, and the drive for innovation, our society will suffer for generations to come. I am hopeful that working to remove the non-educational noise from the classrooms and help replace it with materials that enrich knowledge and challenge students to think beyond the lessons will improve overall educational outcomes in our district.

Although I now homeschool my children, I believe deeply in fixing the system that underserved my family. We will not reap the benefits of the time I volunteer to help fix our district, however, these will be my children’s professional peers. These will be the doctors and scientists taking care of our society when we retire. These will be our engineers and governors someday. For me, this is a long term investment for our family’s future, and for the future of our neighbors and our community.

Survey

Response Legend

SSupports
OOpposes
*Comment
−Declined to respond
†Declined to respond, Position based on citation

Question	Response	Comments/Notes
1. Requiring district and charter school officials, including teachers, to inform parents about their child’s social, mental, emotional, or physical health.	S*	I am a staunch parental rights advocate. Although the education system is responsible for educating children, it is the parents who hold the ultimate authority on all other aspects of their children's lives. We must return to a system that values and respects the parent's primary role in their own children's lives, and stop trying to replace that position of authority with any system or individual seeking to usurp that authority. Parents must be informed of such important issues so that they can decide how to help their children through their issues. No adult should be attempting to hide things about someone else's child from their parents.
2. Allowing parents to opt their children out of activities or lessons that offend their personal, moral, or religious beliefs.	S*	Parents have the ultimate authority in choosing what their own children should and should not be exposed to. Parents have the right to allow or prevent their children from being exposed to lessons or activities that do not align with their deeply held beliefs. I believe that that respect should be given to every parent, and respected by every person within the education system. No person should be allowed to force their deeply held beliefs on someone else's children.
3. Increasing state and local taxes to provide more funding for schools and school facility projects.	O*	The cost of education has steadily increased over time, and the educational outcomes have declined. I believe that until we can produce a better educational outcome with the money we are already receiving, we should not be expected to ask our constituents to pay more in taxes.
4. Requiring signed permission from a parent before a student may participate in any sexuality related instruction, activities, or clubs.	S*	The parents have the final say in what their children can be exposed to and participate in. That said, there should be no tax payer funded instruction, activities, or clubs relating to sexuality.
5. Allowing all parents to use tax credits and publicly funded empowerment scholarship accounts to enable their children to attend any private, homeschool, or online academy of their choice.	S*	I support a parent's right to choose the best education for their children. Not every child is meant for homeschooling, and not every child is meant for public schooling. I believe that the majority of students will continue to attend public schools, and that we must improve those schools to make them appealing to families who choose differently. We need to start talking to ESA, charter school, private school, and homeschool families, and asking them what we can do to make our schools an option for them again. Then, we must work to improve our schools to compete as one of many options in school choice.
6. Making available books and instructional materials that include sexually explicit images and themes in school classrooms and libraries.	O*	If parents want to introduce these sorts of topics to their own children, they may do so at home. No adult has the right to expose someone else's child to sexually explicit materials.
7. Acquiring parental consent for school faculty and staff to refer to students by pronouns that do not align with the student’s birth sex.	S*	If a child is going through issues with their identity, the parents must be notified so that they can have the opportunity to help their own child through those problems. Keeping this sort of knowledge from parents is not acceptable.
8. Allocating teacher pay raises based upon merit rather than providing uniform salary schedule increases based upon years of teaching or additional credentialing (e.g. master’s degrees).	S*	I think that both performance and time in service should be considered when discussing pay raises for teachers. Teachers who earn raises through performance are driven for continued growth, not simply relying on putting in the time. There are also passionate teachers who go above and beyond and they deserve to be recognized and rewarded with an increase in their salary over those who do not put in that sort of time or effort. We all want to see passionate teachers who always strive for better in their classrooms, retire after 25 years of joyful service. Our compensation packages should reflect that goal.
9. Implementing policies to allow students and faculty to use the restroom, locker room, and shower room based on self-identification rather than biological sex.	O*	We cannot put the safety and security of the majority of children at risk for the very small minority who feel entitled to impose their identities on others. Before this school year began, I submitted a student privacy policy that put into place definitive and absolute guidelines for how private spaces will be governed in our district, and it passed unanimously, without any objection. If a child is going through identity issues, once the parents have been informed of these issues, the child will be given the option to use the bathroom that aligns with their biological sex or a single use bathroom/facility. This approach gives respect to every student's privacy, rather than allowing any one student to impose their choices on others.
10. Teaching what is known as diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI); social, emotional learning (SEL); or critical race theory (CRT) in public schools.	O*	I oppose teaching children to focus on the differences between them and their peers. We have to stop teaching division to the next generation and start teaching them to find the commonalities between them and their peers. Our society is built upon having shared culture, ideas, and goals. If we continue to sow division in our young people's minds, our society will continue to fractionate and break down. E Pluribus Unum: Out of many, one.
11. Requiring each district and charter school to post online a list of all curriculum and instructional materials being used in the classroom.	S*	Parents learned in 2020 that there is a lot going on in the classroom that they were not ok with. For a time, they became more involved and informed on what was going on in education. This phenomenon fractured the trust that the public has in our schools. To complete the perfect storm, universal school choice became law in 2022 through the Empowerment Scholarship Account expanding to include any eligible student in the state. Over 100,000 students are now using that program, choosing from a variety of educational options. Losing that trust from the public was devastating to public education, and we have to do everything we can to restore it. Posting all curriculum, reading materials, and book lists for parents to view is a huge step in restoring that trust. We are living in the "trust but verify" model, where parents want to trust our schools, but we have to earn it, because they lost confidence during the Covid era. Aside from trying to earn back the trust of parents in our community, parents have the absolute right to review what their children are being exposed to. In the end, parents have the final say in what their own children should and should not be exposed to.