Name: Pam Teal
Position: Renton School District Director Position 5, incumbent
Age: 44
Family: Husband Mike Teal and two sons, one graduated and one senior at Hazen High School.
Community background: Lived in Renton for about 25 years, 13 years on PTSA in the district, Community Schools in Renton mentor, St. Anthony Catholic Parish member
Political background: Citizens for Renton, I-4204 advocate, appointed eight months ago to the Renton School District Board of Directors.
Web site: pamteal.com
Pam Teal comes to this year’s school board race with numerous endorsements from local politicians and 13 years of volunteerism with the Parent Teacher Student Association.
Renton’s mayor, Denis Law, offered Teal his endorsement alongside six of Renton’s City Council members.
“Those are people who I know, who I’ve worked with. I’m very humbled by the amount of support I’ve received from friends and colleagues,” Teal said.
She also has endorsements from two Newcastle City Council members and state Rep. Marcie Maxwell in the 41st District.
Moving to Renton from Mount Vernon at 19, Teal met her husband and settled, eventually sending her children to Renton School District schools.
Teal first got involved in PTSA at her children’s elementary, Sierra Heights.
Throughout the years she has participated in countless fundraisers, councils and political action groups in support of Renton schools.
Her first political campaign was for I-4204, a state initiative that reduced the requirement for passing school taxes from a super majority of votes to a simple majority (50 percent plus one).
She worked in a liaison role between the PTSA and district.
When Maxwell stepped down from the school board in early 2009. The school board appointed Teal to fill the position.
“I was ready to be done with the cookies and punch part,” Teal said. “It felt for me that it would be the very natural next step.”
Teal has been an appointed school board member for eight months and voted to approve the school year budget in August, which included the district’s first program cuts in several years.
Next year, the state will likely make further cuts to the education budget. If this is the case, Teal favors program cuts over teacher layoffs, she said.
“My goal would be to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible,” she said.
In January 2009, Teal participated in the district’s Summit Initiative, which was an all-inclusive examination of the math curriculum.
Then as a board member, she worked on the outcomes of that initiative.
“By the end of this year, we’ll have 40 teachers with the most current math curriculum,” she said.
