My Priorities

Academic Achievement

Recent MCA test results and national school ranking sites confirm that our kids are being served extremely well in Westonka schools. I’m running to help ensure that Westonka builds upon its academic successes, and to support a continuously improving educational experience with impactful program offerings, technology improvements, and rigorous and relevant curriculum.

Mental Health Support

As a board, we approved a comprehensive review of how well our district supports students’ mental health and creates a positive school climate. The results of that professional review helped create a plan of action that the district has already begun implementing and will continue over the next few years. As a board member, I will continue to monitor and support this important effort.

Facility Improvements

I’ve been paying attention to the state of our school facilities for a very long time, and I can say unequivocally that when Westonka decides to put a referendum together for the public’s approval there are months and months of research and planning and surveys and studies and more research, with the end result being that the district is only going to ask the community for what is necessary to continue providing our students with the high-quality educational experience that people expect. Great care goes into determining the facility needs of the district and crafting a package of improvements that will be supported by the voters in this community. As a school board member I am very grateful that the Westonka community continues to trust us to make fiscally responsible decisions regarding facility improvements, and if re-elected I will continue to support wise investments that improve and strengthen our schools. 

About Me

I’ve lived in the district for 21 years along with my husband Todd Mikkelson and our daughter Eve who graduated from Westonka in 2021. When Todd and I moved to this area we started our own business designing and manufacturing architectural testing equipment, a field that Todd had worked in previously. In the beginning we were working out of our garage just like any good start up, but for the last fifteen years we’ve been located in Spring Park in the old Tonka Toys building. As a business co-owner my work includes accounting, marketing, purchasing, budgeting, tax prep, hiring staff, shipping management, and customer service. We’re proud to say that our products are now the standard in our industry and we sell them all over the world.

I was a first-time mom when we moved to the area and knew we had a number of school choices for our daughter, but when I checked out Westonka I was so pleased to find that there were top-notch public schools right in my neighborhood! I’m a huge advocate of strong public schools and it was a relief to find that we had landed in a place where the local schools are supported and successful. We started out participating in the wonderful ECFE classes offered by the district and happily enrolled our daughter in Shirley Hills for kindergarten.

I enjoyed volunteering in my daughter’s classrooms and with school activities throughout the years, and my husband and I became very involved in the efforts to pass school referendums beginning in 2010. Fast forward to 2017 when School Board member and my friend Ann Bremer passed away. It seemed like the time was right for me to step up and get more invested in the continued success of our schools. It was both an honor and a challenge to be chosen to fill the school board seat that she vacated. Her legacy is a considerable one and I try to approach the work with the same level of passion and integrity that Ann modeled.

I currently serve on the Policy Committee, the Joint Parent Advisory Board, and I’m the Westonka representative to Intermediate School District 287. I feel lucky to be part of a very high-functioning and effective School Board. A great example of the effectiveness of the current school board members is how the interim board position interviews were conducted this past March. From the applicant pool a group of board members identified the top three candidates. In full transparency all three candidates were interviewed at a regular school board meeting one after another, with an audience in attendance and cameras recording the proceedings. In that public setting we identified the strengths of each candidate and agreed that all three were stellar candidates. When it came time for each board member to choose their preferred candidate, we were not all in agreement. But in a testament to both the quality of the candidates and to the cohesive nature of our board, we quickly coalesced behind the candidate who got a majority of the board’s votes. It was a remarkably transparent and democratic process, and I was very proud of how this board conducted itself.

Contact

Please reach out with any questions or ideas:

• Email: heidi@sprayrack.com