CPSD's Jacobs Finds Her Life's Work In Serving Children

Carole Jacobs’ mission is not yet complete.

So when the time came to decide if she would seek a fifth term on the Clover Park School Board, Jacobs, the longest-tenured member of the quintet of directors, just couldn’t walk away.

“To work in the Clover Park School District is to go on a mission,” she said. “It’s not an easy district – but the work is amazing.”

Jacobs has firsthand experience–she spent four years as a substitute teacher in the district in the mid-1990s.

During that time, she got a closer look at the educational shortfalls the district was facing.

“When I was subbing, I had a principal say to me, ‘We don’t worry about educating the kids–we worry about clothing them and feeding them and getting their mothers out of the bars,’ ” she recalled. “I used to go to buildings and I would see the inequity of materials, of books.”

Jacobs was steadfast in her belief that “If it’s not right for my kids, it’s not right for anyone’s.”

So she ran for the school board.

Now, she spends an average of 25 hours a week serving the children of Clover Park Schools.

“If anybody would have told me I’d be doing this so many years, I would have laughed,” she said.

In addition to serving two terms as board president–she is currently the vice president–Jacobs is a board member of the Clover Park Foundation, a member of the Clover Park Citizens Committee for Schools and sits on the Lakewood’s Promise Executive Board.

Now in her 16^th year on the board, Jacobs is closing in on double the amount of time a U.S. president is allowed to hold office.

“But I don’t consider myself a politician,” she said firmly. “This is not politics. It’s service.”

During her 16 years, Jacobs’ main focus has been student achievement.

“I have been known to be a little competitive,” she admitted. “I want things done, and we have made great strides, but the task isn’t done. I just can’t walk away.”

Jacobs said she has seen progress made over the course of three sitting superintendents: Hugh Burkett, Doris Walker and now Debbie LeBeau.  

“If you’re going to make a change, you have to be systematic,” she said. “(A decade ago), everybody was working hard, but it was kind of like we were going in circles.

“Now, the results we are getting are systematic, specific and have the fluidity we have been focusing on.”

One reason for that, she said, is the quality of the district’s educators.

“They give the kids the support and the stability they don’t have at home,” she said. “Maybe their parents are deployed, or maybe they don’t have a home … School is their safety net. And it’s more than that–it’s a place where they’re learning.”

Jacobs said that compassion is something not seen in every school district.

“We have support from within; that means everybody is stepping up and taking care of the kids in a way we shouldn’t have to,” she said. “I am so proud of our teachers and our principals and our counselors because they are making sure kids have what they need to be successful.”

One thing Jacobs is adamant about is that every child has the potential to be just that.

“Poverty is an excuse,” she said simply. “Poverty is bigotry of low expectations–and that’s what keeps kids down and holds them back.

“They have to learn because they’re poor or they’re hungry. We have to teach them, we have to open the door and we have to find a way to connect with them … It’s our duty. It’s our moral obligation.”

Jacobs said that despite Clover Park being a Title I school district, she doesn’t see economics as a disadvantage.

“You look at the poverty and it’s huge, but it’s not an issue,” she said. “It’s like, let’s sit down and get to work.”

While she has heard incredible speakers, taken inspirational trips and met with influential people, her favorite memory has been getting to give her three children their high school diplomas. Christin and Kathryn graduated from Lakes, and Michael, from Clover Park.

Also high on her list was serving as one of seven global delegates on the Secondary Education Transition Study (SETS) study, which looked at the affects of transition on military children.

“It has impacted military kids from all over the world,” she said.

While Jacobs said that she promised her husband, Ted, this would be her last term if she were reelected in November–they have talked about buying a new home, but board members must live in the district in which they represent–the idea of stepping down does give her pause.

“There’s something in my heart that says my mission’s not done,” she said. “I believe this is my last term … but I say that every time.”

With a laugh, she added, “Now, I hope they won’t have to take me out feet-first.”

Her tone becoming more serious, Jacobs said that she hopes that people view her as someone who is fighting for the kid who doesn’t have all of his rights, or the kid who needs an education to escape poverty.

“I hope that people say, ‘She’s still fighting for us,’ ” she said. “I want to get the work done.

“Let me get the work done.”