Hello

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I am Dr. Kevin Korous, and I am running to represent you on Granite District School Board in Precinct 2.

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My top two most important identities are being a husband and a father. I have been married to the most amazing woman for over ten years and I am a father to a very lively 4-year-old son. I love spending quality time with them and every decision I make is centered around them.

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I am also a proud Utahn. I have attended various public schools in Utah. Growing up, my parents were divorced and neither completed their high school degree. I lived with my mom and two siblings. As a child I observed how hard my mom worked. I understood that my role in the family system was to do well in school so that is what I chose to do. I always enjoyed showing my mom the honor roll distinction on my report card because it made her smile regardless of what else was going on. I was also happy to see the results of my effort. Overtime, I learned that my educational success was my own and no one could take it away from me. Because of public schools in Utah, I was able to continue to excel despite how often we moved and how much money we had. I attribute my success in life to my experience in Utah public schools.

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I leveraged my success to earn a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Utah and then became the first one in my family to earn a doctoral degree after I completed my Ph.D. in Family and Human Development. Given my life experience and educational journey, I focused my academic studies on understanding how certain conditions and resources could promote or hinder success and health from childhood into adulthood. I was determined to apply research and data to inform policy. In fact, every paper I published had at least one sentence suggesting how policy makers could use the results. However, I eventually learned that research lacked translation to policy decisions because the research was not easily accessible nor easy to digest.

 

While performance across subject areas has fallen below standards across Utah public schools for the last few years, Granite School District has the opportunity to create a blueprint for optimizing academic excellence. But to achieve this, we need a new approach.

 

School districts need board members who can translate the wealth of research on cognitive development and educational success, along with local experts and professionals, and apply it to innovative curriculum and policy decisions at the local level. A vote for me on Granite School Board will put us in position to use rigorous research to make reliable, evidence-based investments in our children’s future. For example, research consistently shows that children, on average, make larger achievement gains in early grades compared to later grades, and that children who are engaged in early education are more likely to have higher attendance in high school. In contrast, children who experience academic adversity early on often struggle to catch up to the peers later on. Therefore, investing in early education is fiscally responsible because it decreases the workload for additional programs in high school.

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Schools are a vital resource for our communities, and we need to ensure that Granite School District is not only sustainable, but also successful. To do this, we need smart, data-driven decisions guiding curriculum, budgets, and policy. I am Dr. Kevin Korous and I ask that you vote for me for Granite School District Board.