Wallen-Friedman Promises to 'Keep Learning Fun'

Editor's Note: With , we spoke with each candidate to discuss why they want to be a part of the board, what issues they think need addressing and what challenges they expect to face. Stay tuned for individual Q&As with all three candidates before the Nov. 8 election.

This isn't Leny Wallen-Friedman's first rodeo. Having run for—and lost—a school board race nearly a decade ago, he is familiar with how hard it can be to win the vote. Rather than simply cast aside his aspirations, Wallen-Friedman opted instead to get involved with the district by volunteering his time in varying capacities. Now he's making his return to the ballot, asking Edina residents once again to let him help shape the future of Edina Public Schools.

Edina Patch: Tell us a little about yourself to begin with. Where are you from originally and how did you come to live in Edina?

Leny Wallen-Friedman: I'm originally from Poughkeepsie, NY. That's about 80 miles north of New York City and 80 miles south of Albany. I've lived in a lot of different places: Massachusetts, England, California, Wisconsin and Connecticut. During my formative years—when my parents had control—I lived in Poughkeepsie. That was from the age of around 8 until 18. Then from 1981 for 11 years I moved around a bit.

In 1992 or 91, we were deciding where to move to. My wife is a physician, so we wanted to have a place where we could both practice in our fields. We picked the Twin Cities, then later picked Edina because of its school system. Both of us are really big on education, and we had two kids at the time. So our focus was on what's the best school system available. It was definitely Edina. So we've been in Edina since 1993.

Patch: What do you do for a living? Any hobbies or interests?

LWF: I'm an attorney. I advise businesses, focusing on dispute resolution involving commercial litigation. The focus of my practice is on resolving cases short of litigation.

Kids have been my primary hobby and interest over the years. In 1997 I started my own law firm so I could have more time with my kids, who at the time were 5 and 7 years old. I wanted to be able to spend more time with them and knew if I had my own firm I could control my hours better. I'd say my hobbies include kids, sports and reading.

Patch: Why did you decide to run for school board?

LWF: I've always been really big on education and I've also been really big on community involvement. If you look at what I've done since we moved to Edina, I have been volunteering since the very beginning. I was coaching soccer and baseball, in addition to working with scouts and the PTO.

10 years ago, I ran for school board and did not win. A lot of people don't know that. I guess 10 years passes and people just forget. Anyway, I didn't get in and so I called up Tim Walsh—then a school board member—and asked him what I could do to be involved in the district. He said they needed some help on the finance committee, so I started volunteering there. I got to know the administrators and some of the school board members in the process.

Jumping ahead to this summer, a couple school board members called me and asked me if I was interested in running again. I have a little bit more free time than I used to, so it seemed like a good time to go for it again. I'm just really big on education and giving back to the community. It's something I've always done—being involved with the kids and school district. That's why I'm very comfortable saying it's something I'm very interested in doing. I didn't make it the first time, but I decided there must be a different way I could help out.

Patch: What issues are of concern for you within the district?

LWF: The big issues are what everyone points to: finance and technology. Having said that, finances are stable for this year and, absent some market change, stable for next school year. It's the year after that it will become an issue.

When I look at technology, the district has already started to put technology to use within the curriculum and classroom. They've done so with real dollars, but we're just at the beginning of what the district can do. Look at what is doing with —they are just an incredible assist to the classroom. I saw a demo where the teacher wrote out the letters she was going to go over for penmanship. When she was done writing them out, she hit a button to loop it and the content kept repeating. So the students didn't have to keep asking their teacher how to write the letters, they could just watch that looped footage. That allows the teacher to go around to each kid and see what they're doing, see what they're having trouble with. That's a huge way of making it more personalized for kids.

Or look at e-readers. Kids can touch a word and the definition comes up, instead of having to walk over and grab a dictionary. They can highlight a section they don't understand, so when a teacher asks them later they can point out the section in particular. These are things the district has already put in place throughout classrooms. At the they're giving lectures online. Students can watch that lecture at home, take notes, then come in to talk about it the next dayin a group setting. My middle child graduated only a year and a half ago and didn't have that.

I'm a huge proponent of these levies. We can take that money and use it. The question becomes "How can we take that money and continue to use it wisely?" First you have to have the infrastructure. The high school is an old-style building, so it'll take some work to get the technology into each of the classrooms. The key component of it is really curriculum integration. It doesn't do you any good to buy network stuff, laptops and iPads if you don't have a plan for how to integrate it into the curriculum.

I'd put the initial dollars into curriculum development. We should ask teachers how we can integrate this into the classroom, then start getting the technology. The district did a pilot program a few years ago at , where they got laptops for half of the 8th grade class. They later had to abandon the program because they didn't have the proper infrastructure. That's a good example of not just going out and buying laptops and telling students, "Here you are." The order I think we should do it is: curriculum development, infrastructure, hardware, training.

Patch: What is the biggest challenge you think the district will have to deal with in the next four years?

LWF: Again, technology and finances are the two main things we're going to have to struggle with. As part of technology, you have to look at your physical plant. If we're going to go to a classroom structure with seminars and lectures, do we want a classroom that 60 kids can sit in? You go to a college setting where it's a large lecture followed by smaller classes. We don't have the physical plant to do that right now. The trick is there are ways of having effectively smaller classes, but serving a bigger body. I think there will be ways of changing that. So physical plant issues are going to be a major challenge. If you have lectures given at night, what are kids doing during the day? We'll need to think about ways of physically laying out the classroom.

We came out on top of chemical use issues, so that obviously needs addressing. And I'd say the district needs to keep working on AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). 

Patch: Why should Edina residents vote for you? What would you bring to the school board?

LWF: Residents should vote for me because I'm committed to education, experienced in the area and I have good, strong analytical skills. In my job, for example, I'm a problem solver. We want people on the school board who are problem solvers. We want people who are committed to the district.

If I'm a resident in the voting booth, I would ask myself is this person truly committed to the district. When I look at my background, that's an easy answer. I'm knowledgable about the district and the issues facing it. I have a strong financial background, analytical skills through my legal experience and I truly get excited about education. That's the fun part about kids, if you go places with children and watch them soak in stuff, learning is fun. One of our goals is to keep learning fun as a district. And that's part of who I am.

Patch: What's one interesting fact most people don't know about you?

LWF: I have a very diverse background by virtue of having moved, worked and lived in different places. I had a friend from Indonesia come to visit this past weekend. My family actually hosted that same person 35 years ago, back when I was in high school. This part weekend he was at our house visiting. It's kind of fun, because he views himself as one of the brothers—I have three older brothers. So he's the fifth. I didn't seen him for 25 years, but he's in a position now where he traveled to the U.S. for a conference. We communicate by email, but don't get to see each other that often. It was a great experience as a high school student and that's something not a lot of people would know about me.

Patch: What do you make of fellow candidate ? Does it take away the sense of the competition?

LWF: I guess I don't take approach that the three of us are just in by default. There will still be five people on the ballot. So I'm still out asking people to go vote for me, letting them know that I'm an active candidate.

I guess I've always tried to just ask people to vote for me, not to ask them to not vote for someone else. I once worked with someone who told me, "You are who you are. You should tell people to vote for you because you're good."

But I really don't have any comment on his decision. I believe I'm qualified, and I'm still going to be out there the next few weeks asking people for their votes.

Patch: Is there anything else you would like to add?

LWF: People can go to my website and should feel free to contact me by email. I plan to continue to get input from people as far as what's important as we go along as well.