As a company passionate about imagining and enacting a public school system that overcomes historic and persistent inequities, you might think that celebrating national cultural heritage months is a standard staff activity for us.  It is not. Don’t get me wrong.  The West Wind staff agrees that these observances are…

On Tuesday, April 3, West Wind Education Policy, Inc. and the Bijou Theatre at the University of Iowa co-hosted a screening of the American Teacher, a documentary produced by the Teacher Salary Project.  The Project aims to raise awareness of teacher working conditions in America, including salary, hours, and respect…

New Year’s resolutions are all about better living which is something we work to have as part of our culture here at West Wind. We strive to create a healthy and joyful workplace that promotes balance between work and life. We recently decided to experiment with the concept of standing…

  Earlier, we wrote about the planning of the Iowa Latin@ Conference[1]. Every year for the past thirteen years the conference has occurred in a different town across the state – it was Muscatine’s turn in 2011. In just about the same span of time (about 10 years), Iowa’s Hispanic…

Last week on September 28, 2011, President Obama addressed the students of the nation from Benjamin Bannecker Academic High School in Washington, D.C.  This was his third annual back-to-school address to the nation’s students and the second one I watched with my son, Finn.  Finn is in first grade and…

Everyone looks out their own window. White and black make up a spectrum that our society resorts to in conversations of race. By today’s standards, this binary is simply not sufficient. My vacation to the Southwest was a harsh reminder of this. Recently, I returned to the Southwest for a…

I just read the New York Times best-seller “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” Henrietta Lacks was a black woman treated for cervical cancer at John Hopkins in the early 1950s. It was during this treatment that her cancer cells were taken without her knowledge, grown in a laboratory, and…

Teachers everywhere are preparing lessons to teach our children. In the minute it takes you to read this, teachers all over the world are investing their time and often investing their own money for your child’s literacy, prosperity and future. Thanks to teachers everywhere for all you do. We appreciate…

This year West Wind Education Policy, Inc. is celebrating its 10th anniversary.  To honor the goals and purposes of West Wind,  staff chose to celebrate by completing service projects in our community to support local K-12 education.  In June, the West Wind team assisted the Mayor’s Youth Empowerment (MYEP)  and…

Last month my mother, Sherry Bozarth, retired from 18 years in the Oklahoma public school system.   She took a position in the school cafeteria when I was in junior high so that she would have the same schedule as my sister and I – and, I suspect, so that she…