Former Lakeview Elementary principal running for ISD 194 school board
Terry Lind, who last year retired from a 43-year career in Lakeville’s public school system, announced today his candidacy for the Lakeville School Board.
Noah Lind (center-left) and his grandfather (and principal) Terry Lind work on a computer assignment in his kindergarten class at Lakeview Elementary on May 31. The senior Lind is retiring after 43 years working in education. Photo by Aaron Vehling.
The former principal at Lakeview and JFK elementary schools cited his deep connections with the community and his intimate knowledge of school policy in practice as reasons residents should vote for him.
“I feel I really know how the school district works from the inside,” Lind said in an interview with Sun Thisweek, adding that “so many kids I’ve taught are now adults in the community. I even taught their kids and, in some cases, their grandkids.”
In addition to his role in administration, Lind also has been a junior high school social studies and communications teacher and an elementary school media generalist.
“I have a good understanding of the educational system and the needs and wants of the different cultures that exist in the Lakeville community,” he said in a press release. “Our schools continue to face many challenges: the changing demographics in Lakeville, the decreases in the student age population, higher class sizes, additional parent costs for student transportation and student activities and more districtwide fiscal challenges in the future.”
As has been previously reported, Lakeville’s school district faces declining enrollment as households age and as fewer younger families move to the city. This puts a fiscal strain on a district already facing them. Lind said he thinks a key to maintaining a healthy district in the face of these factors is to “get those people involved and to feel ownership over what’s going on.”
He said he is also concerned about growing class sizes and rising participation fees for sports.
“It seems like we’re shutting the door on opportunities for kids more than in the past,” he said.
Lind and his wife, Glenda, put their own two kids through Lakeville schools. Now they have two grandchildren in the district: one attends Lakeview and another attends McGuire Middle School. Lind has a bachelor’s degree in history and English from Minnesota State University-Mankato, a master’s degree in administration, and a graduate certificate in education administration from Minnesota State University-Winona.
Lind has also been involved as a principal representative in some districtwide committees, including three boundary adjustment task force committees, the district technology committee, a facility future needs task force and two district budget adjustment committees.
He was also in the Minnesota Air National Guard for more than 30 years, serving as the state staff historian, writing state histories and supervising the historical activities of Air National Guard units throughout the state.
Lind was a Mandarin Chinese translator during the Vietnam War.
“You could say I was a radio spy,” he said in an interview with Sun Thisweek last year when he retired from Lakeview. The People’s Republic of China was offering assistance to its Communist brethren in North Vietnam at the time, as part of the wider Cold War.
Lind, trained in Mandarin Chinese in California, would monitor China’s air force radio transmissions from a U.S. Air Force base in Thailand.
When he returned from Thailand, Lind jumped back into teaching at the junior high school. He maintained his connection with the military, though, joining the Air National Guard as a historian for another 30 years.
In the late 1960s, Chinese did not have the cachet it does now among those studying foreign languages. So when Lind would take his wife to Chinese restaurants, he said, he would try to impress her by ordering in the native tongue.
“I’d try to order,” he said with a laugh, “but they spoke Cantonese (the version of Chinese they speak in Hong Kong and southern China).”
Lind was also involved in sports when he worked in the district. He at one point was a high school speech team teacher and coached boys and girls varsity tennis.
Outside of district life, Lind has been an active member of Family of Christ Lutheran Church, he said. His roles there have included director of education and president of the church council.
