Jeanne Marie Burroughs on PTA Leadership, School Advocacy, and Running for the Central District Board in Lehi

Jeanne Marie Burroughs on Lehi Schools, PTA & District Split | Roots & Branches

Jeanne Marie Burroughs shares 18 years of PTA leadership, school advocacy, and her run for the Central School District Board in Lehi, Utah. Watch the full interview and read the transcript.

Jeanne Marie Burroughs on PTA Leadership, School Advocacy, and Running for the Central District Board in Lehi

From Panaca to PTA President: A Lehi Parent Steps Up

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Episode Overview

Guest

Role in Lehi

Time Periods Discussed

Primary Topics

Episode Highlights

Key Stories from the Interview

Take Him Out or Dive In and Help

The Box Top Store Weekend Before Birth

So... Are You Running for School Board?

The Nacho Bar That Revealed Administrator Grit

The Cell Phone Committee Surprise

600 New Friends at Greenwood

What This Interview Teaches Us About Lehi

Education Is Lehi's Civic Religion

West Lehi's Growth Has Outpaced School Infrastructure

The District Split Reflects Longstanding East-West Tensions

PTA Is a Training Ground for Civic Leadership

Technology Policy Is Being Written in Real Time

Small-Town Geography Still Defines Lehi Identity

A Technology High School Land Bank Exists

Parent Involvement Is Utah County's Secret Academic Weapon

Community & Legacy Themes

Memorable Quotes

Related Lehi Topics & Episodes

Alpine School District History & Reorganization

PTA Leadership Across Lehi Schools

Growth of West Lehi Neighborhoods

Parent Involvement in Utah Education

Specialty High School Models

Local Civic Leadership & Community Advocacy

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Full Transcript

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From an overwhelmed kindergarten parent to a PTA council president shaping education across west Lehi, Jeanne Marie shares how 18 years of volunteerism led to a run for school board — and why the new Central District split is an opportunity for Lehi families to finally be heard.

In this episode of Roots & Branches of Lehi , host Ryan Harding welcomes Jeanne Marie Burroughs — a Panaca, Nevada native who found her way to Lehi through marriage, family, and a deliberate choice to raise her children somewhere that still felt like a small town. Eighteen years later, she has become one of the most recognizable parent-volunteers in west Lehi's school ecosystem, having served as PTA president at multiple schools, council president over the entire Lehi High feeder area, and now as a candidate for the new Central School District Board.

Jeanne Marie's story is a window into how Lehi's education culture is built not from district offices alone, but from parents who walk into overcrowded kindergarten classrooms and decide to stay. Her journey began with a simple choice: pull her son out of public school, or dive in and help. She chose the latter, and for nearly two decades has filled roles from Box Top coordinator to legislative advocate at the Utah State Capitol. Along the way, she has worked as a behavior aide, graded spelling tests, organized nacho bars for district administrators, and become the person teachers and parents text when they need answers about a boundary change or a new bill.

This conversation arrives at a pivotal moment for Lehi, Utah. The Alpine School District is splitting into three new districts, and the Central District — temporarily named Aspen Peaks — will serve Lehi, American Fork, Highland, Alpine and Cedar Hills. Jeanne Marie discusses what the new board's first and most consequential decision will be (hiring the superintendent), how class sizes and technology like AI are reshaping the classroom, and why she believes the half-seat that pairs her Meadow/Dry Creek area with Greenwood Elementary might be her favorite part of the job. For anyone interested in Lehi school history, local civic leadership, parent involvement, or the future of Utah County's fastest-growing city, this episode offers an intimate, detailed portrait of education as community work.

Join Ryan Harding and Jeanne Marie Burroughs for an in-depth conversation about moving to Lehi, falling in love with its lake-side neighborhoods, and turning a overwhelmed moment in a kindergarten classroom into 18 years of school advocacy — capped by a run for the new Central School District Board.

Jeanne Marie Burroughs

PTA Leader, School Community Council Member, Education Advocate, Candidate for Central School District Board

2000s–2020s (18 years in Lehi, Utah)

Moving to Lehi, PTA leadership, district split, school board responsibilities, class sizes, teacher support, technology & AI, cell phone policies, future school programs

Jeanne Marie's move from the tiny town of Panaca, Nevada to Lehi, Utah, and why she chose a neighborhood near the lake that still feels "small town."

The pivotal moment she chose to get involved in education after walking into her son's overcrowded kindergarten classroom with 30 students and an overwhelmed teacher.

Her rise through PTA leadership across multiple schools — from elementary president to middle school president to council president overseeing six elementary schools, Willow Creek, Lehi Junior, and Lehi High.

How her father's call about a new UNLV autism program redirected her entire career from social work to a master's in special education.

Inside the Alpine School District split: why east-west divides proved irreconcilable and how the new Central District (placeholder name: Aspen Peaks) will be shaped by its first board.

The board's most critical first task: hiring a superintendent who has teaching experience, integrity, and the ability to connect personally with all 19+ schools in the Lehi area.

A candid look at class size realities in Lehi — why smaller schools do not automatically mean smaller classes, and why community investment beyond state funding is essential.

The future of technology and AI in Lehi classrooms — how teachers are already using it for lesson plans, and why Jeanne Marie insists the "personal touch" must remain central.

How parents, teachers, and administrators collaborated on a cell phone policy at Lehi Junior High — and why listening to all sides produced a better result than the policy she walked in ready to fight for.

A vision for specialty programs in the new district: technology high schools, performing arts programs, and leveraging the land Alpine School District already purchased off 2100 North.

Jeanne Marie's defining moment came when she walked into her oldest son's kindergarten classroom the year before Dry Creek Elementary opened. Thirty children filled the room, and the teacher looked overwhelmed. The administration, she recalls, was "barely holding on." Standing in the doorway, Jeanne Marie had a choice: remove her son from public education or commit to improving it. She chose to dive in. The very next year, she made sure she was at the first principal's meeting, determined never to feel that helpless again. That single decision launched 18 consecutive years of PTA service, school community council work, legislative advocacy, and eventually a campaign for school board.

Jeanne Marie's introduction to PTA fundraising coincided with her third pregnancy. She volunteered to oversee fundraising not knowing she was already expecting. Rather than step back, she adapted. The weekend before she gave birth, she was running the Box Top store. A month later, her newborn daughter attended her first PTA meeting. That daughter, Jeanne Marie jokes, was "raised in the schools" — and the experience cemented a family culture where volunteering was simply what they did.

When the Alpine School District split passed, Jeanne Marie became an unofficial information center. Teachers, parents, and neighbors texted and called asking what came next. She researched bills during the legislative session, clarified boundary questions, and tried to stay positive about the change. At the end of nearly every conversation, the same question appeared: "So... are you running for school board?" For months she deflected, insisting it was not something she had ever wanted. But the more she reflected, the more she returned to her original philosophy: if she was going to complain about the district's breakdown, she needed to be willing to help fix it.

After the split vote, Region PTA threw a "popup nacho bar" at the district office to boost morale among administrators whose "business just exploded." Jeanne Marie struck up a conversation with a curriculum administrator who admitted he felt like he had been fired. But his next sentence revealed the caliber of people in the district: "Tomorrow we're going to get to work and we're going to make three really good curriculum plans... and we are going to find the needs of those certain students in those certain areas and we're going to make it the best we can." The moment crystallized for Jeanne Marie that the new district was inheriting talented, committed professionals — and that her role would be to build on their work, not reinvent it.

Jeanne Marie joined a Lehi Junior High committee to update the school's cell phone policy expecting to advocate for a strict ban. Instead, she listened to teachers who let students use phones when work was done, and to other teachers who explained how one classroom's phone use disrupted students in the next room. She shared her own daughter's experience — texting her mother for pep talks during lunch periods to survive the transition to junior high. The final policy was not what she entered ready to fight for, but after hearing all sides, she believed it was better. "Being able to listen to all those different sides helped," she says — a philosophy she plans to bring to the board.

When Jeanne Marie learned her school board seat would include not only Meadow and Dry Creek but half of the Greenwood Elementary area in American Fork, she did not see an unfamiliar burden — she saw opportunity. "That's 600 automatic new friends for me," she told Ryan. The attitude captures her approach to public service: every school is a community to enter, every principal is a partner, and every parent who shows up is an asset. She has already committed to visiting every school in her area weekly if elected.

Jeanne Marie's multi-generational family of educators and her instant immersion in PTA work illustrate how deeply education is woven into Lehi's community identity. Schools are not just institutions here — they are the primary venue through which neighbors meet, friendships form, and civic skills develop.

With elementary schools like North Point nearing 1,200 students and boundary lines that split Lehi and Saratoga Springs, the interview documents a community where enrollment pressure has been acute for more than a decade. The Cold Springs Elementary project appears as a critical relief valve.

Jeanne Marie's candid observation that "the East and the West kind of had different sides and they weren't budging" confirms what many residents suspected: the Alpine School District split was not merely administrative, but the resolution of a long-festering geographic divide over priorities, resources, and representation.

From monthly principal meetings to annual Capitol advocacy days, Jeanne Marie's PTA trajectory shows how parent organizations function as an informal leadership pipeline. Her work as council president and region board member gave her direct experience with budgeting, policy, and coalition-building before she ever filed for elected office.

The interview captures a district in transition: Chromebooks purchased with school community council funds because central support lagged; teachers experimenting with AI for lesson planning; and new state-mandated cell phone policies requiring local committees to set rules. Lehi is not merely adopting technology — it is negotiating how human connection and digital tools coexist.

Despite explosive growth, Jeanne Marie deliberately chose and re-chose a neighborhood near the lake because it "feels more small townish" and "tightknit." Her description of farmland edges and family clusters reveals how Lehi residents mentally map their city into villages — and how those micro-identities shape school engagement.

A detail likely unknown to many residents: Alpine School District already purchased land off 2100 North in Lehi for a potential technology-focused high school. The project stalled with the split, but Jeanne Marie's openness to reviving it signals that the new board may grapple with specialty school models sooner than expected.

Both Ryan and Jeanne Marie arrive at the same conclusion: Utah's large class sizes are partially offset by extraordinarily high parent engagement. When parents grade spelling tests, run book rooms, and staff behavior aide positions, they function as an unpaid extension of the teaching workforce — a hidden subsidy that shapes Lehi's educational outcomes.

I had to decide — take him out of public education or dive in and help.

I love being a part of everything. I feel like I can make a bigger difference that way.

People kept asking me, 'So... are you running for school board?'

Our school board couldn't work together well enough to keep our district together.

If I'm going to complain about something, am I willing to jump in and fix it?

The new superintendent will make or break this district.

We need to be driven by community input.

Parents are the number one teacher for their kids.

I don't know everything — and that's why councils matter.

Any help a parent is willing to invest in their child's education is worth it.

How Utah County's largest district split into three, and what it means for Lehi, American Fork, and west-side communities.

The parent volunteers who fundraise, advocate at the Capitol, and shape trust land spending at every level.

From farmland to family subdivisions near the lake — how west Lehi retained a small-town feel amid rapid development.

Why Utah's large class sizes still produce strong outcomes — and the unpaid parent labor that makes it possible.

Tech schools, arts programs, dual-language immersion, and ALL — how Lehi might expand student choice in the new district.

How Lehi residents move from volunteering to running for office — and why the school board race is drawing new candidates.

Complete archival transcript of the interview with Jeanne Marie Burroughs, organized by chapter for readability. This record preserves the oral history of her work in Lehi schools, her candidacy for the Central School District Board, and her perspective on the people and policies shaping education in one of Utah County's fastest-growing communities.

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This oral history interview is part of the Roots & Branches of Lehi community archive.

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