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Alec Anderson

Professor Justin Jory

English 2010

3 February 2019

Laura Belnap: Utah State School Board

Laura Belnap, just by reading about her, you can get a good understanding about what

really matters when it comes to education, which is to help students continue to have a desire to

learn and stay in school. Having had the struggle of putting six kids through school and working

in the educational system, she has a better perspective of how schools can be improved for those

being taught. Mrs. Belnap is a principle for Utah Online School and has taught in both Utah and

Colorado prior. This service is being used by over 3,000 students with 50 teachers and staff

(Utah Board of Education Bio). I would assume that she has gone with this method of teaching

because she feels this is a more excellent route for some students to learn.

Laura is from Bountiful and in charge of the 5th district which is the area surrounding

Salt Lake City, and she has listed 3 issues that are the most important for her district. These

issues are the lack of parental involvement in school along with the role or importance of

families being taught, communication of community for the students, and the common core

creating division (Davis for Local Education).

The issue of involvement is not occuring to every single student, but enough to the point

where you can tell that there is a problem, but it is also in different ways. For example, some

students can be in single parent homes, others can have both but no communication is occuring
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to where the kid is on his own to learn. Part of this ties in with Belnap’s thought of the

importance of families not being fully taught in the home. Because it is hard to monitor the

teaching in the home, it is best to make sure it is at least taught in school. Belnap says in an

interview, ​“​No public program can compensate on a large scale for the life-critical values,

priorities, and discipline that must be instilled in a successful individual. However, for some of

our students, our schools are the only opportunity for them to receive these values and valuable

skills” (Davis). This shows that the role of the family being taught is a priority to Laura.

Communication is an important factor when it comes to many things but in education,

communication is the only way to uncover problems. How would you know if your kid was

struggling with school if you didn’t ask or get an honest answer, or if the student didn’t know

how to approach the teacher to get a better understanding of a subject. “​We need more open

communication about how we can work as a community for the students. Even when ideas may

differ, honest open communication is vital to the success of our children” (Davis).

The “Common Core”, for those who don’t know, is what students from K-12 learn in

public schools, with Language Arts and Mathematics as the main subjects surrounded by

different classes. Belnap gave a simple answer of “common core” when asked about the three

most important issues to her, but later she was asked if she wanted to clarify anything and was

very thorough with it then. It’s the biggest quote, but the most important, she explains “Our

common standards, which include minimum standards for each grade are appropriate and I am

comfortable with these standards. For example, third graders will learn to multiply by 2 digits,

5th graders will write a complete paragraph. I am concerned about how our teachers have been

asked to teach these standards. We lack the training and professional development for this

process to run smoothly. This has created issues for our teachers and their ability to present

these standards in a way that our children can learn the information. This creates holes and
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gaps for our children and their learning. There are some teachers who do this intuitive but that is

not the whole. We MUST be very concerned about the curriculum that has been used” (Davis).

The thing that is powerful to me about Laura Belnap is in every one of her quotes she is

focussed on the “children”, the “students.” Another thing that I noticed was that everytime she

talked about what needed to be done, she used words like “we”, “us”, “our” instead of “you.”

She is including herself as part of the solution and not leaving it to everyone else, that is an

example of a good leader, and this leaders goal is ​“Helping each student to develop the skills and

attributes they need to meet their goals. Blending online learning with our highly qualified

teachers provides students with greater learning advantages, more educational choices and

future opportunities” (Laura’s Priorities).

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Sources:

“Utah State Board of Education (USBE or Board).” ​Utah State Board of Education​,

www.schools.utah.gov/board/members/utah/laurabelnap​.

“Davis for Local Education.” ​2014 Candidate - Laura Belnap - Davis for Local Education​,

www.davislocaled.org/Elections/2014/state-board-lcbelnap-2014.php​.

“Laura Collier Belnap | Priorities.” ​Mysite,​ ​www.laurabelnap.com/priorities​.