Lois Yount learned the value — and necessity — of being skillful at multitasking long before most people her age.
As the oldest of nine brothers and sisters and, after losing her mother at a young age, she assumed the role of “chief officer of the house,” reporting to her father while growing up in San Jose, Sacramento and Elk Grove. She helped care for many of her younger siblings, cooking, cleaning and babysitting. And, in her “spare time,” she helped her self-employed father by doing the bookkeeping for his business.
It all helped prepare her for her roles today as the Superintendent for the Galt Joint Union Elementary School District and as a Board Member of the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium (SECC).
“It was hard but, looking back, that experience definitely made me who I am now,” Lois recalls. “I see it in my leadership qualities and the achiever in me, my ability to be very self-sufficient and to take on a lot of things and a lot of different roles — my work ethic — because I think I really had to do a lot at a really young age.”
She says that many of the teachers she met along the way also helped and encouraged her: “My most memorable teachers were the ones that went out of their way to make a personal connection with you, knew what you were interested in and gave you opportunities to excel in areas you were interested in.”
In college, Lois’ areas of interest were education and the law. The graduate of Elk Grove High School earned a degree in Liberal Studies and a bilingual teaching credential from Chico State, an administrative credential from the University of La Verne and and a Master of Laws degree from the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.
Today, Lois sees her educational background and personal experience complementing the partnership between the Galt school district and the SECC:
“We’ve really valued the partnership and how SECC has supported us with getting the SEVA labs set up at our school sites. We have three school sites that are using the labs. We’ve been able to provide some real leadership and growth opportunities for our students. They’re making great videos.”
In addition, she points out, SECC also has provided great professional learning and training opportunities for the school district’s educators in video production and for collaboration among the other districts.
Looking ahead, Lois sees the partnership continuing to thrive as the Galt school district — with SECC’s advice and assistance — explores the future of library media centers: “We want our libraries to be more than just a place for kids to check out books. How can we make our libraries future learning centers? Can we work with SECC to make them more of a tech or video learning hub?”
Want to contact Lois? Write to her at lyount@galt.k12.ca.us
