Paul Cumings

Paul Cumings

205 Concord Exchange N. #145
South St. Paul, MN 55075

paul.cumings@gmail.com

Occupation: Executive Assistant

Share a little about your background.

My name is Paul Cumings. I moved to South St. Paul in 2008 and have been a homeowner in this city for 13 of those years. My mother was a public school teacher and my father was a Lutheran pastor. Since those early years, my life has been dedicated to public service and bringing people together to find innovative, community-based solutions. Part of that early service was becoming an Eagle Scout in my local Boy Scout Troop.

After high school, I served for two years as an AmeriCorps member with Pillsbury United Communities in the Cedar Riverside Neighborhood of Minneapolis. I served as a tutor and mentor to youth in afterschool programs.

I am a graduate of Augsburg College and the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs where I focused on public and nonprofit leadership and management.

In 2007, I started working for Rep. Paul Marquart and the House of Representatives Property Tax Relief and Local Sales Taxes Committee and the bi-partisan Government Redesign Caucus. We worked with local units of government across the state including school districts to craft programs to drive down the cost of property taxes.

When Mark Dayton was elected governor, I went to work in his administration, where I fought to increase fairness in our tax code including asking the richest Minnesotans to pay their fair share, cutting net property taxes for the first time in decades, and developing proposals aimed at improving water quality across the state.

I currently work for the Majority Leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives as a connector and problem solver. During my 17+ years in state government service, I have learned how to work collaboratively to solve problems and get things done. Now, I am eager to use my experience to deliver results for South St. Paul students.

I was a member of Luther Memorial Church where I was active in church council, the finance committee, choir, and led the book club. I currently enjoy swimming at Central Square Community Center.

What qualifications or experiences do you have that make you a strong candidate for the School Board?

In addition to what is listed in my biography above, I will highlight a few areas that I think will be essential in serving on the School Board. We all bring different gifts and talents and here are some of the items I can bring:

• I have worked on policy related to state and local governments. I have worked with the Minnesota School Board Association and other entities representing local units of government on increasing existing state aid programs, creating new state aid programs tailored to meet specific community needs, lowering property taxes, cutting mandates, and cleaning up our environment. My knowledge of how local governments interact with state aids and policies will be helpful in ensuring we can maximize existing resources. I will also advocate for the funding and policies needed to help South St. Paul’s students.
• I have experience working on outreach efforts. If done well, outreach efforts are all about working with voters on the problems facing our communities and developing possible solutions to solve them. As we talk to voters about how to fund our schools, I want to ensure we are ready to honestly and accurately talk about the issues that they care about. I partnered with local residents in Worthington, Minnesota to talk to voters about the referendums in their communities and the impacts that it could have on the schools and students.
• I have experience in problem solving on hard and difficult policy issues. Much of my day job at the State Capitol is bringing people together to solve challenging issues. I have worked on issues related to education, health care, immigration, democracy, climate change, tax fairness, infrastructure development, conservation and much more. I am eager to bring those skills to fight for South St. Paul’s students.

What activities and organizations are you currently involved in?

Over the years, I have been involved in many activities and organizations. One activity I have recently been involved in was working with the Drivers Licenses for All Coalition in Minnesota. This coalition worked to ensure all workers in Minnesota had the ability to get to work or school safely. In order to enact this legislation, we partnered with the Catholic Bishops, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, and the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association to craft legislation that ensured all drivers were safe and licensed on our roads.

Why is serving on the South St. Paul School Board important to you?

South St. Paul is my home. Our future vitality, economy, and civic life is directly correlated to the ensuring our students have the best possible education. Great schools cannot be delegated to teachers or staff alone – it takes all of us. As a person who has unique knowledge about the state and local fiscal relationship, I think I have something to contribute to the greater good.

What is your vision for the future of education in South St. Paul?

As your School Board Member I will:

• Put Kids First – I will ensure South St. Paul students have a World Class Education that allows them to be anything and go anywhere. Our students deserve nothing less. Our future economy and civic life depend on great schools.
• Fight for a Sustainable Future – I will fight for our hometown school. In a time of school consolidations, South St. Paul has something special. As demographics change and enrollment declines, we need to embrace creative solutions and bold visions.
• Build Inclusive Schools in Partnership with Everyone – I will listen to the voices of parents, students, teachers, staff, and residents to develop collaborative solutions. We must work together to ensure our students have safe, supportive, and inclusive environments.

What are your thoughts on how the district should address equity and inclusion?

All students, parents, teachers, staff, and residents should be able to bring their whole selves into the spaces that we share with one another. Part of that means creating safe spaces for affinity groups to learn and grow. It also means providing opportunities to showcase the rich diversity we have in South St. Paul with one another. Just as we celebrated the rich diversity of our past when the stockyards and meat packing plants were open, we must find new ways of celebrating our diversity in today’s context. In many ways, our schools are already finding ways to do this, but it isn’t easy. It is hard work - so we must continue to find new ways of ensuring that we are supporting this work and showing respect.

What areas of concern do you have regarding the current state of South St. Paul Public Schools?

So much is going right in our schools. I am so excited to join a team of teachers, parents, employees, students, and residents working for the best possible education for our students. We have so much to be proud of and so much to look forward to. Yet, we should continue to find ways to work together to make out schools even better.

South St. Paul has something really special. The school boundaries are almost exactly the same as the city boundaries. In a small town we have to maximize our opportunities for coordination and collaboration. In recent years, we have seen a slow but noticeable fracturing of the relationship between the school and city. Most residents don’t care that these are two separate units of government – they just see one community. We must do better and be a leader in how two government units can work together. There have been recent efforts to document some shared values and I applaud that work, but there is much more to do.

Based on the conversations I have had with residents and parents, two things seem to be rising – costs associated with the district office and class sizes. We have to figure this out. We have made promises to residents about the improvements that would be made to the schools based on past referendums. We need to be accountable to the items we promised voters. I want to ensure that when we are allocating resources, we are putting kids first.

In a more modern era with more mandates and regulations, we are at risk of missing the human connection as there is an increase in the standardization of procedures. Many times when that happens, we lose the importance of our connections and people can feel and perceive a lack of respect. Our super-power is being a hometown school – that means we have to figure out new ways of showing up and ensuring we foster a strong interconnected community based on mutual respect.

Students, teachers, and residents want to feel safe at school. We have made a commitment to voters that we would have safe learning environments and voters provided funds to ensure that happened. I want to ensure we are using those funds in service of those goals.

What specific suggestions do you have for improvement?

Some of the issues I laid out above deal with ensuring we are keeping the promises we made to South St. Paul voters. I will ensure we are being transparent about how our school district is keeping those promises.

Other issues I mentioned deal with how we must foster collaboration and mutual respect. To do that I will listen to the voices of parents, students, teachers, staff, and residents to develop collaborative solutions grounded in respect. We must work together to ensure our students, teachers, and staff have safe, supportive, and inclusive environments. That is something I want to model and something I will expect on the school board.

But, even if there are areas to improve, I won’t give up on South St. Paul Schools or students. I will work to be a positive voice in solving problems. In a small town, it takes everyone to make this enterprise work – we just don’t have the luxury to pit people against each other. I will find ways to listen to the voices of neighbors, find common ground, provide constructive feedback, and work through the issues in service to our schools and kids. To be successful, we have to find ways of staying united even if it is hard.

Provide a brief candidate statement.

My name is Paul Cumings and I am asking for your support for School Board for South St. Paul. As your School Board Member, I will put kids first, fight for a sustainable future, and build inclusive partnerships. I will ensure South St. Paul students have a World Class Education that allows them to be anything and go anywhere. Our students deserve nothing less. Our future economy and civic life depend on great schools. I will fight for our hometown school. In a time of school consolidations, South St. Paul has something special. As demographics change and enrollment declines, we need to embrace creative solutions and bold visions. I will listen to the voices of parents, students, teachers, staff, and residents to develop collaborative solutions. We must work together to ensure our students have safe, supportive, and inclusive environments. I would appreciate your vote on or before November 5th.