ELIA, KEEHN RUNNING FOR BISHOP SCHOOL BOARD
Four candidates are running for two spots on the Bishop Unified School Board this election cycle. The candidates are incumbent Steve Elia, Michelle Mulligan, Jamie Morley (who ran the previous cycle) and Karen Keehn.
Two candidates (Elia and Keehn) responded to interview requests. Their profiles appear below:
Karen Keehn
Karen Keehn is a lifetime educator who entered her 49th year in the classroom this fall.
After a four-year stint down south, she moved here to take a job at Bishop Elementary in 1979. She taught third grade for 33 years until her official “retirement.”
In retirement, she has continued working at Bishop Elementary, teaching art.
Keehn has never served on a school board, but felt compelled to run given the threats and aggressiveness towards school boards in recent years over Covid protocols and then health curriculums.
“Everyone thinks I’m crazy running for school board, based upon what school boards have been going through … but this is not a political position. This is about the kids, not the political party you identify with … and there are a few people running who want to make it more about that.
There are good things happening in the district right now (she cites a recent grant which added teachers in music and the performing arts). Nothing’s perfect, but things are relatively calm right now. I believe in our public schools,” concluded Keehn.
Keehn is supportive of the school bond measure on the November ballot – “some things haven’t been upgraded in thirty years, fifty years” and is supportive of teachers, especially those who have taught through and beyond the pandemic.
“If they’re still teaching, they are super-dedicated … what teachers deal with now is so hard, harder than when I was [teaching third grade], as more kids have experienced trauma … Anyone teaching special ed or junior high, you have a special place in my heart.”
Steve Elia
Steve Elia is a 1.5 term incumbent.
He resigned during his first term because his wife had taken a job with the district, which created a one-year conflict of interest.
After that year ended, he ran in the next election and won.
He has served as board president for the past two years.
Elia moved to Bishop in 1996. He taught English at the high school for 15 years before taking a job as a program specialist with AVID, an educational non-profit.
As Elia explains, AVID’s mission is about “closing opportunity gaps,” and he approaches being a board member with similar focus.
He quoted a national survey which found that just 33% of graduating high schoolers feel they’re ready for life after.
“We want our kids saying they got what they needed [in the Bishop schools] to be successful … and we want staff saying they got what they needed in order to prepare our kids.”
Some accomplishments he points to are a commitment to maintaining smaller class sizes (especially at the elementary school), an increase in health and behavioral services for students, a multi-year investment in staff development via UDL (Universal Design for Learning) and the completion of a comprehensive facility Master Plan which paved the way for this fall’s school bond measure (which he supports).
All three of Elia’s children have attended Bishop schools.
His son graduated last year and has matriculated at the University of Nevada-Reno.
His daughters are seniors at the high school.
