Denise Specht elected president of Education Minnesota

Specht, who is finishing her second term as secretary-treasurer of Education Minnesota, ran against current President Tom Dooher. She will begin her three-year term as president July 1.

Denise Specht

Specht said she would bring a more collaborative style to leadership of the state’s largest union. “Strong leaders make connections and we have relationships to repair,” Specht said, “but we will not weaken on our core values and we will bring the educator’s voice back to the debate.”

Specht, 47, has served as the union’s secretary-treasurer since 2007. She previously served as president of the Centennial Education Association and in other local, state and national union roles. She was a Title I teacher at Golden Lake Elementary School in the Centennial district and taught sixth grade in the Forest Lake district and fifth grade in the Azle and Progresso, Texas, schools.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Moorhead State University and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from St. Cloud State University. Specht lives in Shoreview, Minn. Her parents were both teachers in Buffalo, Minn.

Education Minnesota’s officers are elected every three years by delegates to the annual Representative Convention, the union’s highest governing body. Delegates, in turn, are elected by local educators unions and Education Minnesota’s statewide affiliates in numbers proportional to their membership. Officers and voting members of the Education Minnesota Governing Board also serve as delegates.

Education Minnesota’s members include teachers and educational support professionals in Minnesota’s public school districts, faculty members at Minnesota’s community and technical colleges and University of Minnesota campuses in Duluth and Crookston, retired educators and student teachers.

Reprinted from the Education Minnesota website.