School board member Paula O’Loughlin has made many difficult decisions on the board, which has now led to her decision to run for State Representative.

O’Loughlin has been a part of the school board since 2014 and has made many difficult decisions that she and the board felt were needed for the district. She will run for State Representative to have a bigger voice in what happens with the state.

“Very early on in my tenure in school board, I realized that so much that we were having to grapple with and so much of the conditions in which we had to operate especially around budget was set by the state,” O’Loughlin said.

Over 10 years ago, the state had only been giving about 75 percent of the education budget to schools. This caused districts to make cuts, starting with letting teachers go and cutting programs like the arts and in some cases closing schools. Years later, the schools are still trying to play “catch up.” O’Loughlin has expressed interest in growing her voice to the state level so that she can have more influence in what happens with the budget.

“I’m also really passionate about health care, particularly around mental health and making sure that we increase our services for especially vulnerable youth and adults,” O’Loughlin said.

O’Loughlin expressed interest in the education and health care sections of the state. She has been concerned about mental health for a while, even in the public schools where some of the schools did not have psychologists or people who are trained in mental illness.

“If Paula is elected I think she will fight for funding for our public schools. We have been faced with increasing levels of decreased funding and Paula realizes that there are some things like special ed, for example, that is what’s called an unfunded mandate, so we don’t get near enough funding for that, yet we have to fund it out of our budget… I think the reason that she is so interested in running is because she feels very passionate about that in getting funding for public education for all of our kids,” Jennifer Pelletier, a member of the school board said.

Pelletier reiterated the fact that public schools are not given enough money to fund all of the necessary programs like special education.

“My goal is to be able to be the kind of representative that people may not, and they won’t always agree with me,” O’Loughlin said, “but what I do hope is to earn the respect from people so they know exactly why I voted the way I voted.”

She understands that if elected some people will agree with her decisions while others might not. She is more concerned about gaining respect and trust from the people.

“I think she is a person of high integrity. She is very thoughtful, but decisive and I think she’s the type of person that would go to the ends of the world for people she cares about,” Sara Letourneau, real estate agent said.

Friends and co-workers of O’Loughlin commented on the amount of integrity and passion that she has. She has also gained a positive reputation and is thought of as a person who is very well informed and who is true to herself and her beliefs.

“I’m really someone who really believes that we have so much more in common than we do that what separates us and really being able to find common ground through our common values,” O’Loughlin said.