That’s what Lindsay Love seemed to be experiencing Dec. 14 at the Chandler Unified School District Board of Governors meeting. In the final meeting for her and Lara Bruner as board members, Love thanked everyone who had come to podium earlier in the evening to thank them for their four years of service.
“I think hearing from students tonight made me a little teary,” Love said. “Being a black school board member is tough. When serving as an alliance member, I met most of us, and there isn’t enough of us. From my grandmother graduating high school, to my mothergraduating from college, first generation, to me finishing grad school and sitting on a board in a district where I attended school, I am proud of that lineage. I hope that I have planted a seed to make it easier for my neice and for Patty Serrano (and other board members of color).”
Bruner received praise from a parent who thanked her for being on campus and finding out the needs of parents and staff firsthand.
Bruner finished in third place to Kurt Rohrs and Serrano, who, as the top two vote-getters in the November election, were set to be sworn in for four-year terms at an early-Janurary meeting. Love, who was elected to the board in the same 2018 election as Bruner, decided not to run for re-election in 2022 amid threats and other stressors.
One of the Chandler district graduates who spoke about Love was 2022 Hamilton High graduate Jacob Marson. He said Love was the only board member to reply to his concerns in October 2021, condemming what a public speaker had said days earlier at a CUSD meeting about Jewish people pushing vaccines for a profit motive.
“When I walked across the stage to deliver my graduation speech, it was Ms. Love who gave me a look of reassurance,” Marson said.
Love, a licensed clinical social worker, works as a clinical manager for an outpatient behavioral health agency that focuses on serving children and families. She also provides behavioral health counseling in a private practice setting, according to the district website.
The 2003 Hamilton High School graduated also attended Bogle Junior High School. Her nieces attend Tarwater Elementary School and Chandler High School.
Bruner has been serving in public education for more than 30 years and currently teaches high school psychology and history. At the state level, she is the co-founder and director of the Arizona Teachers of Psychology Conference.
Bruner also has provided professional development for teachers at national conferences and has created curriculum for the American Psychological Association.
Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.
He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.
Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.
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