GISD trustee candidate spends her retirement advocating for kids

Teachers who worked with Susan Wood in Cleburne ISD wish Wood could run for school board there, said Santa Fe Elementary School Principal Sabina Landeros.

Wood, one of three candidates running for GISD school board place 3, worked at Santa Fe for four years before retiring in 2018 and continuing to volunteer there.

“She was an advocate for one of my students who was going to miss out on receiving Special Education services, and she helped interpret information for a parent who didn’t speak English,” Landeros said of some of Wood’s post-retirement volunteer work. “She helped pay for a reading consultant to come to my campus and used the training systems and strategies during tutoring.”

Since the playground in Santa Fe Elementary needed an upgrade, Susan called on her husband Grant Wood, former brewmaster at Revolver Brewing Co. and creator of local craft beer Blood and Honey, and their friend, “Cowboy Chef” Mike Newton, to help her raise money for it.

“She has that passion for justice and for doing what’s right in all aspects,” Landeros said. “Her interactions with people are very positive, polite and encouraging.”

Susan’s first work with children was as a caseworker for Child Protective Services.

“I was working with kids who had been abused,” Susan said. “That was kind of soul crushing, but it was incredibly important work to do.”

After that, she worked as a therapist with children in a Therapeutic Day School, for students whose traumatic experiences caused them to act out in ways that prevented their participation in typical schools.

“I got really interested in how trauma affects learning,” Susan said. “And how we can help kids develop some resilience to that.”

That interest got Susan into, “the education side of things.” She became a SPED administrator in the public school system, collaborating with school psychologists, social workers and guidance counselors to develop appropriate programming and interventions for students with disabilities.

She went from administration to teaching after she moved back to Texas in 2012.

Landeros said having someone on the board who has education experience could provide insight into some of the important decisions made by the school board.

“There are lots of areas where a school board member encounters a situation that they don’t know anything about,” Landeros said. “I spend some time talking to our board members and they are sometimes just needing clarity on some of the processes and the way things are done within the school system.”

Susan said one of her goals as a trustee is for students to not only be successful in their school years, but be prepared and ready to become part of a community once they graduate.

“There’s no easy answers to hard questions,” Susan said. “And we’ve got a lot of hard questions that we have to address. It’s going to take a lot of communication, a lot of trust, a lot of collaboration at working towards a consensus.”