Nadya Jenkins has been the Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board’s newest member since kicking off her two-year term at the Jan. 9 meeting, but Jan. 9 was not Jenkins’ first school board meeting.

Jenkins, who moved to Fountain Hills with her family in 2016, has been attending FHUSD school board meetings for two and a half years.

Because of this experience, Jenkins said that a lot of the practices and procedures were not new to her when she officially joined the board.

“I am familiar with a lot of the policy the board had already put in place, items that they had previously approved or asked for follow-ups on,” Jenkins said. “So there will be times when something, now as a seated board member, gets presented as a follow-up and I am nodding my head along because I remember.”

While items on the board’s agenda might not be a total surprise to Jenkins, the way she approaches those items as a board member are different than when she was a member of the public.

“Obviously, now that I am involved in voting on items, there is a lot more of the details that I am poring over at a level that, as an engaged parent, I wasn’t doing,” Jenkins said. “I also keep a closer eye on numbers like our finances and, of course, enrollment rate, one of our concerns as a district.”

Jenkins now also considers decisions with the knowledge that she is speaking for more than just herself.

“Having that level of responsibility, it is something that I really keep in the back of my mind,” Jenkins said. “Obviously, I have my own opinions, but I am an elected representative of all the constituents of Fountain Hills, which are people of all ages and all backgrounds. So I have to think about what is best for our students as stakeholders in the community, but also all our residents who pay taxes.”

While there was a lot Jenkins already knew about her new role as a school board member, there was still plenty she learned when attending a recent orientation.

“In January I went to the BOLTS (Board Operation and Leadership Training Seminar) conference,” Jenkins said. “And they went really in-depth on topics like, if you weren’t already aware of Arizona open meeting law and what that means in terms of seeing another school board member on the street and talking with them about board policy.

“We really are only able to talk about school business in the meeting room, but that is because we are supposed to do everything in the open. They talked about conflict of interest. Things that you need to be aware of if you wanted to try to do business with the school district.”

With that training now under her belt and with two-plus years of school board meetings to her name, Jenkins has settled into to her new role.