Yue Yin for WL School Board
My Vision and Advocacy as a Board Member
Keep Growth Mind-set and Strive for Excellence
Our school district is one of the best in our state and ranks high nationally, with many impressive achievements. However, there is always room for growth and improvement, even for top districts. I believe it is crucial for our district to keep a growth mindset and strive for excellence in all aspects of education. During my first term, I have advocated for improvements in various areas, and I will continue to do so. Below are some highlights. For my full work reports, please read them online.
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These improvements could not have been achieved through my advocacy alone. I would like to thank community members, administrators, teachers, staff, students, and my board colleagues for their support and efforts in making these changes possible.
Quality Education for All Students. Students have diverse educational needs, and it is important to identify and actively seek ways to meet these needs. For example, according to U.S. News (Figure 1), our high school ranks 219th in the nation and 3rd in Indiana. This is impressive, considering there are more than 30,000 high schools in the U.S. and over 400 in Indiana. However, the same report indicates that 29% of our high school students have not taken any AP exams, 38% did not pass any, 28% did not pass the math proficiency, 17% did not pass the reading proficiency, 30% did not pass the science proficiency, and 4% did not graduate. Indiana state reports show a similar pattern, suggesting that we have room for improvement in academics, even when compared with other schools in Indiana—especially when we focus on subgroups rather than average scores.
Figure 1. US News Report
Similarly, in other areas, students may need additional support, such as those with limited family resources, special needs, mental health challenges, or who require extra assistance with social skill development, as well as students who need additional academic challenges. Many students may also experience anxiety and stress in our competitive school environment. Some families may need more and convenient after school care or extracurricular activities for their young children. Even if only a small group of students has specific needs, we should still address their unique challenges and support all students in developing their potential while growing up healthy and happy.
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I have drawn attention to diverse students' needs and advocated to address them. Improvements have been made in both schoolwork and extracurricular activities. For example, preschool programs have been initiated, additional after-school opportunities have been provided to families, Pre-algebra is now offered to 6th graders, and families of advanced students and students with disabilities have been surveyed about their needs and concerns in the search for special education director.
We should not ask teachers, who are already overworked, to take on all the responsibilities. Instead, I have advocated for forming teams that include administrators, teachers, and parents to brainstorm and actively seek feedback and solutions for issues related to special education and advanced learners. I have also suggested providing training to parents on how to address mental health issues. Recognizing that there are more tutors than tutees in high school, I also proposed the possibility of having high school students assist elementary school students who need extra help, creating an efficient and economical educational ecosystem.
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I will continuously listen to the community to stay informed and open-minded about various needs and suggestions. I will also continuously promote teamwork of school and families to help address the diverse educational needs and provide quality education for all the students.
Strong Support for Teachers and Staff. I am a teacher myself and I also work with K-12 classroom teachers substantially for my research. I fully understand the impact that teachers have on students and the challenges that K-12 teachers are facing daily: Too much work, too little time, limited resources, and insufficient salaries. In particular, the average salary of teachers in Indiana ranks below the average in the US according to National Education Association (Figure 2). ​​
Figure 2. National Education Association Report
In addition to classroom teachers, many other dedicated staff members work hard daily behind the scenes as well, including janitors, bus drivers and directors, librarians, paraprofessionals, substitute teachers, food service staff, extracurricular activity directors and coaches, school resource officers, nurses, counselors, and administrators. They work as a team to help the district run smoothly each day, creating a nurturing and safe environment for our students to grow. Working in the education field, I know how challenging it can be when anything goes wrong in schools.​ I appreciate the selfless and tireless work that teachers/staff members/administrators do for our students and advocate for them to receive more understanding, appreciation, and support.
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I have supported teachers and staff members in various ways, such as advocating for competitive salaries, increasing teacher and staff appreciation initiatives, sharing funding opportunities, proposing promotion and professional development opportunities, and surveying their preferences for medical services, their experiences with class sizes, and their input on the employment and evaluation of administrators.
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Although teachers have received raises in salary in the past several years, these raises have not kept up with inflation. I will continue to advocate for teachers to receive better compensation and appreciation. In addition, I will advocate more professional development for teachers to keep up with innovative technology, including Artificial Intelligence. We live in an age where change is rapid, especially with all the information, technology, and artificial intelligence. Keeping up with technological developments will benefit both teachers and students. Finally, I will advocate more mutually beneficial collaborations with Purdue University to facilitate teaching and learning.
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​Prudent Spending. Indiana's average teacher salary is ranked low in the United States by the National Education Association (Figure 2). The state funding per student (ADM) for our district is even among the lowest in Indiana, lower than $8000 per student per year (Figure 3). Our enrollment is about 2,200, which is much smaller than neighboring districts. However, we still need to maintain the same functions as larger districts.
Figure 3. Indiana House of Representatives Website
​Fortunately, our community generously supports our district and passed a referendum in 2023 again, which contributes to about one fifth of our total revenue in 2024. I appreciate our community’s strong support and never take taxpayers' generosity for granted. I want to make sure that we don’t waste money on unnecessary spending, so that we can save the money to support teacher and students.
Before I served on the board, our district had been using a service of a law firm for more than a decade. I noticed that sometimes we spent $20-30K per month and more than $300K per year on this legal company. In addition, our district had the lawyer unnecessarily attend the board meetings every month, paying the the lawyer $500 per meeting. Noticing this counterintuitive spending, I studied many other districts and found that our legal service was unusually high and it was rare that the district lawyer attend all the board meetings elsewhere. I raised a question about this and voted NO to the renewal of the lawyer’s contract. As I was the only board member who voted no for that decision, the contract was granted. Eventually, other board members joined me and we hired a new legal service which typically charged about 2-3 K per month. I will continue to oversee spending and prioritize spending to better support teachers and students.
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Transparency and Communication. It is critical to keep the board and school decision process, supporting documents, and policies transparent and communicate them effectively to parents, teachers, and the taxpayers to keep them informed and seek their feedback when needed. This transparency ensures that everyone is well-informed, able to provide feedback, and contribute ideas. It also helps ensure decisions reflect community needs and preferences.
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For example, I proposed and insisted to keep the school board meeting live streamed during and after COVID time so that those who cannot make the meeting in person can still attend it online or watch it later. I regularly post board meeting schedule and documents on social media to keep the community members informed. I proposed and insisted to release board meeting documents before the meeting so that the community members can review them and provide feedback, if any. I proposed to remove the meeting conflict with West Lafayette city council meeting to make it easier for community members to attend both and had to vote NO to a schedule that kept the time conflict. I rejected the removal of public comment section after the board meetings, because I consider it a great opportunity for the public to share their perspective after attending the board meeting and hearing all the decisions. Unfortunately, the public comment after board meeting was removed without enough votes to keep it. I will advocated to add back the public comment session at the end of the board meeting. I proposed to build social media for the school district and update the website to keep the public informed.
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I am grateful that the new superintendent, Dr. Greiner, and his team have launched our social media accounts, such as Facebook and X, updated the website, and regularly sent newsletters to keep the community informed. Compared with four years ago, our community members are now much better informed about how the board and school operate and how decisions are made.
We should continue to improve transparency and communication. Some critical procedures should be clearly outlined in policy and followed consistently. For example, we need clear procedures for reporting and intervening in cases of bullying, criteria and procedures for student placement in different classes, and procedures for staff employment and evaluation.
Data-driven Decision-Making. We need to collect and analyze data to make well-informed and optimal decisions regarding learning gaps, various needs, problems, resource allocation, accountability, and the effectiveness of different approaches. Systematically collected factual data from intended populations are more reliable and valid than individual impressions, intuition, or anecdotal evidence. For example, using students' standardized test data allows us to identify gaps in learning and teaching and to provide targeted support where needed. By surveying or interviewing families of students with specific needs (e.g., special needs, advanced learners, English learners, athletes, students across different grades), we can better identify and address their needs. Using longitudinal data on club attendance, we can evaluate whether and how the revised bell schedule has impacted students' extracurricular activities, as well as its effects on different subgroups in terms of equity. By collecting satisfaction survey from teachers and families regularly, we can identify problems systematically and timely, and examine whether the problems identified have been solved later successfully.
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Over the years, I have received feedback on potential improvements for our schools, such as adding more extracurricular activities at WLES, providing additional after-school care for younger students, introducing language education, accommodating diverse learning needs, enhancing special education services, improving education for advanced learners, better addressing school bullying, standardizing rules for course skipping in high school, addressing mental health issues, optimizing employment procedures, and planning for the future of the Happy Hollow building. I will continue to advocate for data collection from relevant groups on these issues before making critical decisions.
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I have training in quantitative methods, data collection, and data analysis, which I regularly use in my research and teaching. I am happy to contribute to the board with this experience and expertise.
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