Member elected to SOESD Board
When Rosie Converse turns 30 over Memorial Day weekend, she and her family will also be celebrating her election to the Southern Oregon Education Service District (SOESD) board.
Converse, a software developer for the district and an OSEA member, beat an incumbent by nearly 20 points to earn a seat on the board for SOESD, which serves nearly 50,000 students in Jackson, Josephine and Klamath counties.
Converse had little interest in politics before moving back to southern Oregon from her hometown of Colorado Springs. She first came to Oregon to attend Southern Oregon University.
Clockwise from left, Rosie Converse, Tito Soriano, and their sons Manolo and Jace.
“Then, as the last election season unfolded, I found myself more and more compelled to get involved,” Converse said.
At work, she and her coworkers would encounter odd, sometimes counterproductive policies. When she asked how to make change happen, she was generally told it was a board matter and that the board was unlikely to listen.
“I figured at the very least if I got elected, one person on the board would listen,” Converse said.
Her campaign was based on knowledge and experience, which given her margin of victory over an entrenched incumbent, appears to have resonated with area voters.
“I also wanted my coworkers to know that I believe in what they do, and that I want to give them a chance to have a board who sees the actual value of their work, not just the value shown on spreadsheets and graphs,” Converse said.
She’ll have to resign her job before she takes office, but she hopes to move into a teaching position with an area school district.
Her husband, Tito, is an OSEA member who works as a data analyst in the Ashland School District and is an assistant coach on the varsity football team. They have two sons, Jace, 4, and Manolo, 2.
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