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Denise Forrest

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Denise Forrest
Image of Denise Forrest

Democratic Party

Elections and appointments
Last election

November 3, 2020

Education

Bachelor's

Wayne State University, 2000

Personal
Birthplace
Detroit, Mich.
Religion
Jewish
Profession
Teacher
Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

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Personal Facebook

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Denise Forrest (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Michigan House of Representatives to represent District 44. She lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.

Forrest completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Denise Forrest was born in Detroit, Michigan. She earned a master's degree from Wayne State University in 2000. Forrest's career experience includes working as an art teacher with Huron Valley Schools. She has served as a president with the Huron Valley Education Association, and as a board trustee with the Huron Valley Council for the Arts and with the Huron Valley Education Foundation. She was elected to serve with the Huron Valley School Board in 2018.[1]

Elections

2020

See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2020

General election

General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 44

Incumbent Matt Maddock defeated Denise Forrest in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 44 on November 3, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Matt Maddock
Matt Maddock (R)
 
59.5
 
35,416
Image of Denise Forrest
Denise Forrest (D) Candidate Connection
 
40.5
 
24,067

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 59,483
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 44

Denise Forrest advanced from the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 44 on August 4, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Denise Forrest
Denise Forrest Candidate Connection
 
100.0
 
9,208

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 9,208
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 44

Incumbent Matt Maddock advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 44 on August 4, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Matt Maddock
Matt Maddock
 
100.0
 
14,531

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 14,531
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign finance

Endorsements

To view Forrest's endorsements in the 2020 election, please click here.

Campaign themes

2020

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Denise Forrest completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Forrest's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

My name is Denise Forrest and I am running for MI State Representative from the 44th District. My husband and I raised three daughters in Milford and have lived here for almost 40 years. years.

I hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Wayne State University, a teaching Certificate in K-12 Art Education from U of M Flint and a Master of Education in Educational Leadership also from Wayne State.

I have dedicated my life to public service. First as an art teacher, then as the President of the Huron Valley Education Association, representing all of our great Huron Valley Schools teachers. Upon retirement, I continued my passion to work with my community. I ran and won a seat on our HVS School Board, serving since 2018. I also founded two community arts organizations in my district which are still thriving. I am a board member for Huon Valley Council for the Arts and Huron Valley Education Foundation. I am a proven leader who knows how to make positive change in my community. I now stand ready to serve my community on a larger scale representing the 44th in Lansing.
  • Our children deserve great schools. A quality public school education provides the building blocks for a successful life and is an inverstment in our state's civic and econimic future. To guarantee a well rounded education for all Michigan students, I will support the nonpartisan raodmap of the School Finance Research Collaborative to fiix the way we fund schools.
  • Michigan's lakes and waterways are precious. Here in our district, residents are proud of the many lakes, parks and recreational opportunities that living here affords. I pledge to be work to keep our air and water clean and hold polluters accountable so PFAS and other harmful pollutants will be cleaned up. Our families, local businesses, and our communities depend on the health of our water.
  • Workers are the lifeblood of our economy. They deserve respect, safety and fair compensation. I will help rebuild our middle class by ensuring employees with full time jobs earn enough to raise their families. I will also support our small business community that creates jobs for our hardworking residents.
Detroit Free Press   Featured local question
I would start this process by making sure our high school students across the state have the opportunity to participate in their Career Technical Education (CTE) programs offered in our public school districts. For those districts that may not have these programs available, or do not have the partnerships developed, I would work on growing CTE across the state. Many of our skilled trades organizations offer apprenticeship programs, oftentimes free of charge for high school graduates and beyond. One of these trades is the Plumbers Union Local 98 and MCA Detroit Training Center.

Greater cooperation between the organizations that demand skills-employers and economic developers-and those that supply them-schools, training providers, and nonprofits will be enlisted to further increase the needed talent in Michigan and draw more employers to our state because we have the workforce necessary for these jobs.

Businesses, schools, and local governments can cooperate to create move this process forward.
As a lifelong public school educator and now an elected school board member. I will always be an advocate for public eduction.

Public education is at the heart of our democracy and the promise of America as the land of opportunity, but without proper funding that promise cannot be fulfilled. Everyone in our state deserves the opportunity for quality education - an opportunity I fought for in Huron Valley - but the underfunding of our schools, both in teaching and learning, has led to diminished opportunities for our kids. Instead of nurturing our schools - and thereby our children - lawmakers have starved them of the resources they need to succeed, all the while condemning teachers as overpaid, and attempting to dismantle our unions. I've been on the front lines facing this challenge and worked with the school administration to secure raises when fiscally responsible for the entire district - not just its teachers.

I will fight to restore funding to educate Michigan's children. For the past 20 years, Michigan has ranked dead last in total education revenue growth between 1995 and 2015. After adjusting for inflation, school revenue was 82 percent of what it was in 1995. It is time to properly fund Michigan's public schools.
First and foremost, I have relied on my skills as a collaborator who works with all kinds of people and can work to find a mutually beneficial solution to issues regardless of opinions and personal beliefs. I can envision the end result of a a project I am working on and understand the steps necessary to successfully complete the task at hand. I treat people with respect and empathy and listen for understanding, which is the foundation for relationship building, which is the job of a public servant. Informed decision making is a must for a legislature, and I always approach my informed decision making through researching the subject by asking experts, consulting with colleagues and certainly reaching out to the people I am entrusted to make decisions for. I am transparent and a hard worker, with the mindset to follow a project through to its successful completion.

I worked for the city of Hamtramck on their beautification commission. This work was made possible by a state funded grant - Comprehensive Employment and Training Act or CETA. The goal was to provide an income to The program offered work to those with low incomes. I was hired to lead a team of employees to work on such projects as rebuild city parks, design and render historical murals around the city, and to teach art related skills to people who were homebound. This was a rewarding program as I was able to hone my leadership skills and use my art training to teach skills to those chronically unemployed. I worked in Hamtramck city hall and reported to the city planner. The grant was for two years and remains one of the highlights of my employment history.
The book I am currently reading is bound to be one of my favorites. It is by the first time novelist- Ocean Vuong, written in first person by a young man in his twenties who lives in Hartford Connecticut, who recounts his family history, beginning with his Grandmother and Mother's experience in Vietnam during the war. His prose is beautiful and poetic. Previously Ocean Vuong has published poetry and articles in a variety of magazines.
I believe the greatest challenges over the next decade will be to prioritize funding our public schools equally and equitably, regardless of child's zip code. 30 years of raiding the school aid fund and an borrowing from public education pension fund, we have to come to grips with how to keep the general fund afloat without dipping into the school aid fund. I also believe it is time to reexamine Prop A as the school funding mechanism, because it is not working. There are still major gaps between school districts and the funding they receive. We have been dead last for over two decades in growth in education spending. The state of Michigan also has to put some teeth and authority into the Polluter Pay Law. Prior to 1995 our state was a leader in environmental protection. Since then we have shifted the burden to clean up pollution from corporations to tax payers. It is time to reverse this trend. Michigan holds this dubious distinction in funding for structural projects around the state and also in last in government transparency. Without more transparency, Michigan cannot get ahead of the curve in providing the resources necessary to provide a good education and proper maintenance of our roads and bridges and reinvest in our future, because they can remain unaccountable to the good people of Michigan who elect them to run our state.
Of course it is beneficial to build relationships with other legislators. I have spent my career working with people who have different views as I. As an association president representing over 500 teachers and mental health professionals, I have worked hand in hand with school administrators during the Great Recession to solve difficult financial problems to find common solutions that were mutually beneficial to keep our school district solvent and deliver the highest quality education to our students. It is important to put people over ideology and set aside personal agendas which bring people together, find solutions and work for the interests of everyone across the great state of Michigan.
I would like to be on the education committee, natural resources and outdoor recreation and or oversight committee.

I have a breadth of knowledge of public education after 30 years of experience as well as a Masters Degree in Educational Leadership. I also have a very good understanding of educational law and finance.

I have been a lifelong advocate for clean air and water, so I would love to be on the natural resources committee. Our residents in the 44th are proud of living amongst so many parks, waterways which afford both beauty and recreational activities that so many of us enjoy. After seeing so much adverse legislation by our law makers to public education, I would love to be on the oversight committee as a way to regulate the process and make sure that checks and balances are in place in our government.

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.

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Footnotes

  1. ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 26, 2020


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