GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Grand Rapids Public Schools will have four new board members in 2025.

Voters chose Eleanor Moreno, Amber Kilpatrick, Arick Davis and Richard Williamson in the Nov. 5 election.

Kyle Lim is the education justice strategist and team lead with the Urban Core Collective in Grand Rapids.

“We at the Urban Core Collective are critical because these are the spaces oftentimes when everyday people have a chance to really use their power,” he said.

Lim said they are excited about the new round of GRPS Board of Education members.

“We were blessed to have an incredibly aligned group of candidates that were running on issues that people have identified as part of the vision for healthy and healing schools in Grand Rapids,” Lim said.

He said candidates ran their campaigns on priorities of increasing accountability and transparency at district levels, transportation, healthier food options and school safety — all big issues the community wants solved.

“I got to give a shoutout to students, parents and staff that have been organizing for years now to identify these as critical community issues,” Lim said. “And now we are seeing a wave of candidates step into school board that are really attentive to all of those.”

One critical community issue will be a major focus next year.

“Many folks often don’t feel very included in district-level decision-making. And at our October 9th candidate forum, all candidates, including the four who have since gone on to win, committed to making sure that schools begin to use more shared decision-making practices with parents and students and that there will be more participatory processes will be put into place at district-level issues, like the school budget,” Lim said.

He also discussed other big priorities, including teacher and staff compensation.

“We know districts run on very limited budgets and we are working hard at the state level to try to ensure that we have increased funding for schools across the board,” Lim said. “But things like better food are still issues for us, improving our transportation system have proven to be issues, staff compensation are all budget-related issues that we are looking to see investments in.”

Lim said the Urban Core Collective is excited to continue working with the community and the new school board members to tackle shared priorities.

“We are working with some buildings to try to find some ways that they can implement some shared decision-making practices and are planning to continue to find ways to and look for ways with this incoming group of board members that we can make some of the district-level decisions a little bit more open, accessible and participatory for community members,” Lim said.

The new GRPS board members will begin in January of 2025.