A native Cincinnatian, Pat attended Oak Hills High School, received her BA at the University of Kentucky in 1973 and completed her Masters in Art Education at Miami University in 1985.  Pat was art educator in The Northwest Local School District for 30 years, and President of the Northwest Association of Educators, 1995-2004.

Since retirement as an art educator in 2004, Pat has pursued art in a more personal venue as a muralist for Artworks Cincinnati. As a member of Art4Artists, a group of professional and community women artists, she share ideas and works and celebrates the importance of the arts in our everyday lives.  Several collaborative A4A projects  included The Harmony Garden Foundation’s, Picturing a Healthy Girl PhotoVoice Project to bring attention to girls’ health issues.  The WomenWorkBooks collaborative with Kennedy Heights Art Center focused on the relevance of women’s issues to the lives of young girls.  Most recently, her assemblage, “Who’s Pulling the Strings?” was exhibited at the 2016 Annual SOS Show at The Art Academy of Cincinnati.

As Chair of the Price Hill Will Board of Directors and a member of the Housing, Arts, and Education Community Action Teams, she developed community-wide opportunities for engagement in the arts and encouraged grassroots community activism.  She founded a summer youth photography workshop for 6-8th graders in 2006.

Ms. Bruns sincerely believes that grassroots political action can also be a powerful vehicle for positive change.  As a Public School activist throughout her career, she invited Governor Strickland to her home in 2010 to discuss adequate and equitable funding to insure high quality public schools accessible to all students with area educators.  She was Price Hill’s Ward 25 Chair from 2006-14.  She volunteered as a Neighborhood Team Leader for Organizing for America in the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns and for Hillary campaign in 2016.

For her on-going work, Pat was awarded Price Hill Will’s Top of the Hill Dedicated Resident Award (2017), Cincinnati Women’s Political Caucus’ Outstanding Achievement Award (2014), Girl Scouts’ Woman of Distinction Award (2013), and Southwest Ohio Education Association’s Friend of Education Award (2012).

Ms. Bruns recently completed a 4-year term as an elected member of the Ohio State Board of Education, representing District 4/Hamilton and Warren Counties (2015-19).

Her work included:

• Hiring the current Superintendent Paolo DeMaria
• Developing the Class of 2018 Graduations Options as a member of the Graduation Requirements Workgroup
•  Reviewing and adopting Ohio’s Every Student Succeeds Act Plan
• Voting that ECOT had been overpaid an estimate $60M during 2015-16 school year and an estimated $20M during the 2016-17 school year
• Approving the Educator Standards Board recommendations to streamline the Teacher Evaluation process (OTES) and the Resident Educator Program
• Working with colleagues to develop SBOE Guiding Principles to inform the strategic planning process
• Serving in a leadership role as a member of the 5-year Strategic Plan’s Steering Committee and the Excellent Educators and Instructional Practices Workgroup.  The EachChild-OurFuture Framework involved over 1400 stakeholders and was adopted by the SBOE at the June 2018 meeting

She sat on the following SBOE committees and workgroups:

• Executive, Achievement & Graduation Requirements, and Accountability & Continuous Improvement Committees
• Graduation Requirements and Report Card Review Workgroups

Her term ran from January, 2015 through December, 2018.

In March 2018, she declared her intention to run for re-election for another 4-year term.

on Facebook at Pat Bruns for State Board of Education

on Twitter @VotePatBruns

at http://www.FriendsofPatBruns.com

Paid for by Friends of Pat Bruns
Terry Conway, Treasurer 4540 Glenway Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45205