Garrison picked for state board

By Editor | August 7, 2019 |

About nine months after being appointed to one statewide committee by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Vandalia’s superintendent of schools has been appointed to another.

Pritzker on Friday announced Dr. Jennifer Garrison’s appointment to the Illinois State Board of Higher Education.
Garrison is serving as the only acting K-12 administrator or teacher on the 15-member ISBHE.
Her appointment follows her appointment late last November to Pritzker’s transitional Educational Success Committee, which was set up to advise and guide the Pritzker administration in the area of education.
She was as a leader of the Funding Illinois’ Future Coalition and the Fix the Formula Campaign advocating for a new equitable school funding formula which led to the passage of the Evidence-Based Funding for Student Success Act during her tenure as Superintendent of Sandoval C.U.S.D. #501. She has been a committee member for IASA’s Vision 20/20 since its inception in 2013, working on the Illinois Balanced Accountability Model that was the blueprint for the Every Student Succeeds Act for Illinois.
Garrison, a 1995 graduate of Vandalia Community High School, has served as the Vandalia superintendent of schools since April of last year,
After serving nine years in the Illinois Army National Guard, during which she achieved the rank of sergeant, and continuing her education, Garrison taught in elementary school at Highland from 2000-06, served as principal of Ramsey Grade School from 2006-09 and was the superintendent of the Sandoval School District from 2009 until being hired for the Vandalia post.
Garrison attended her first ISBHE meeting on Tuesday in Springfield, which included looking at the board’s strategic plan.
“It was written in 2007, so it’s time to update that and really dig in and look at the state as a whole,” Garrison said.
Garrison said that she was approached about serving on the ISBHE after her participation in the transition team’s work.
“I was kind of shocked by that invitation,” she said. “I am honored and humbled by it.”
As the K-12 representative, Garrison will be providing input on the board’s “alignment of the Illinois State Board of Education with higher education.”
As such, she will have the opportunity to tout the importance of dual credits, which allow high school students to begin their postsecondary education, thereby giving them a jump on their college career and reducing that cost.
“It’s accessibility and affordability,” Garrison said about dual credits and the presence of the Kaskaskia College Vandalia Campus.
“If you see what Kaskaskia College offers to us, compared to a four-year university tuition and not having a 45-minute commute (to the KC campus), what we’re really doing is leveraging our community.
“It’s part of doing what we can to keep our students in Illinois,” Garrison said.
She sees the appointment as a way to keep the funding issue for rural schools downstate in front of the decision-makers.
“The funding reform really elevated our small group, let them know that we aren’t going to take no for an answer, that our districts are suffering and that we were faced with closing our doors,” Garrison said.
“It was really about getting connected with both sides of the aisle and finding common ground to bring them together,” she said. “I see this as a continuation of that work.”
About her decision to accept her latest appointment, Garrison said, “Talking to the school board, it’s just that we really need to be a voice for Central and Southern Illinois, and this was an opportunity for that.
“It was just an opportunity to have a seat at the table that we couldn’t pass up,” she said.
“I think what (President) George Evans is doing as Kaskaskia College, what we’re doing with Vandalia ONE is a highlight and a spotlight that we can highlight at the state level now,” Garrison said.
“It’s all about having that voice and being able to get opportunities for us locally,” she said.
On whether she saw these appointments and her involvement in education statewide as she plotted out her career, Garrison said, “My ultimate goal was to come back home.
“That’s still my full-time job and what I’m going to focus on,” she said.