Bill Sorensen
From Ballotpedia
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Bill Sorensen was an at-large member of the Peoria Unified School District in Arizona. He assumed office on January 1, 2021. He left office on May 29, 2024.
Sorensen ran for election for an at-large seat of the Peoria Unified School District in Arizona. He won in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Sorensen completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Bill Sorensen was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He earned a Ph.D. from Grand Canyon University. Sorensen's career experience includes working as an assistant principal, science teacher, coach, and in the educational leadership field.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Peoria Unified School District, Arizona, elections (2020)
General election
General election for Peoria Unified School District, At-large (3 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Peoria Unified School District, At-large on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Rebecca Hill (Nonpartisan) | 14.5 | 35,100 | |
| ✔ |  | David Sandoval (Nonpartisan) | 14.1 | 34,196 |
| ✔ |  | Bill Sorensen (Nonpartisan)  | 13.3 | 32,298 |
 | Linda Busam (Nonpartisan) | 13.2 | 32,008 | |
| Kirk Hobbs (Nonpartisan) | 12.7 | 30,792 | ||
 | Davita Solter (Nonpartisan) | 9.3 | 22,567 | |
| Kacie Franklin (Nonpartisan) | 8.8 | 21,434 | ||
| CJ Williams (Nonpartisan) | 7.3 | 17,687 | ||
| Devon Updegraff-Day (Nonpartisan) | 6.3 | 15,307 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 837 | ||
| Total votes: 242,226 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Bill Sorensen completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Sorensen's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a proud parent of two fifth grade students in PUSD and a 17-year educator. I have served in PUSD as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal for over ten years. As someone within the PUSD system I have experienced our strengths and weaknesses from the inside out and know where can improve. As a principal, I involved community members in decision making, challenged the status quo and focused on adding value to our community through service. I pride myself on being an active listener who utilizes evidence to make decisions and build community. I advocate for you to reach out to parents, teachers, and students who have worked with me and ask them what I bring to the table every single day. I am confident that these personal references will convince you that I deserve to be your elected official within PUSD.
- I am a servant leader who will actively listen.
- We must build skills in students to prepare them for life after our K-12 educational system.
- Fiscal Responsibility - quality education requires deliberate spending.
I am passionate about how we allocate our resources. Monetary policy must be built on return on investment which means intentional measurement of how we spend our money to optimize results. Our community cannot afford waste and we must utilize evidence to determine how we best serve our students, teachers, and parents.
I look up to Jocko Willink who lead the most decorated NAVY SEAL team during operation Iraqi Freedom. He wrote a book entitled "Extreme Ownership" that I take to heart as I lead and serve. Extreme ownership is a significant concept in how I live my life and the accountability portion of our slogan. I hold myself accountable first and will have high expectations for everyone around me.
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink.
Service oriented, transparent, accountable, and being an active listener.
My very first job was a courtesy clerk at a grocery store when I was 15. I worked there for one year.
Untamed - great message to women about being independent and fierce.
Once by Pearl Jam
School board members, like all elected officials primary responsibility is to represent their community. This requires active listening, analysis of evidence, and actions that measure return on investment. Specifically board member make decisions regarding policy, fiscal decisions, and working in cooperation with community members to maximize value for our neighborhoods.
Our constituents are all members that live within the PUSD school boundaries or work within PUSD.
As the grateful principal of Centennial High School I served a diverse community and found ways to serve every individual within that community. The key is to be an active listener who emphasizes empathy for all who I serve.
As a principal in PUSD my goal was to be the most accessible principal in the nation. That goal will remain the same as a board member. I will be out in our community making connections with all stakeholders.
We will develop a system of regular meetings where we hear from our parents. As a principal I invited every parent from our community to join our action research team. The team consisted of around 40 parents and we engaged in healthy dialogue to solve real issues that faced our school.
We must hire and retain the most talented staff that are a strong representation of the community we serve. This includes hiring staff that are divers in culture and thought. I would reach out to organizations like Teach for America to help expand our reach on diversity and talent.
In order to provide quality education we must all be working as a team. In this divided world we must find a way to engage all community members toward student success. Quality education is not just in the standards and curriculum, it is also in the skills students develop everyday working with diverse teachers and classmates.
Quality teaching is a complicated process but must focus on engagement, formative assessment, relationships, and higher level thinking. We must create a holistic practical teacher evaluation tool that is developed with stakeholder input. We must also provide quality professional development and look for help from NBCT to optimize advanced teaching.
Student must be exposed to diverse learning opportunities. Every student has a gift to give this world and it is our job to provide students with opportunities to find their gift through a variety of learning experiences. There is no one path toward postsecondary success so student should be exposed to gifted learning, all service levels of special education, career and technical education, arts, Advanced Placement, etc.
We must change our measure from graduation rate to postsecondary outcomes. A diploma in itself carries a finite amount of value, the real value is what student do with their skills after graduation. Therefore we must track our students 1, 5, and 10 years after graduation to see if they have found purpose, identity, and community.
I touched on this in the previous question but we must expose our students to diverse learning experiences which include apprenticeships. However, not all apprenticeships are of equal value. We must ensure these apprenticeships and technical training opportunities show us the exit outmodes of these programs to ensure we have a high return on investment.
We need to focus not only on austerity but local revenue generation. Partnerships with organizations, teaming up our athletic programs with marketing opportunities, reviewing our fee structure for faulty rentals, etc.
There are many types of safety. Physical safety is one of them and we have restructure our campuses to reflect that. However, in cooperation with physical safety measures we must also focus on the emotional safety of our schools. If we can make every single student have a sense of belonging and tribe then we are acting proactively in regard to safety.
An intentional effort to make everyone feel as if they belong within our community. A fulfilling life is one of purpose, identity, and community if all of our stakeholders can find these three things mental health will be the byproduct. In addition, a focus on healthful living will create the environment for mental health (mood follows movement).
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 6, 2020
