For 20 years, she worked with students from kindergarten to sixth grade in the middle-class suburbs of Salt Lake and in the county’s one-room shelter school. She has taught children labeled gifted and children labeled homeless. She remembers the year she had 39 fifth-graders, and the year she had 12 special education students in a class of 35. She believes that no matter how students arrive, no matter their learning conditions, and no matter what political tests or labels or punishments they face, educators have the sacred duty to be professionals and to care for the whole child. And she believes that professionalism carries the responsibility to take action, individually and collectively, to fight to make the promise of public education—to prepare every student to succeed—a reality.

After teaching for only nine years, she was named Utah Teacher of the Year in 1989, and she used that title as a platform to speak out against the dismal funding of Utah schools. One of her colleagues suggested she run for president of the Utah Education Association. So she did. In 1990, she was elected UEA President, her first elected position in the Association. She has since served in key leadership posts, including the NEA Executive Committee and NEA Secretary-Treasurer. She continues to championing the rights of teachers and students in the schools of the United States.