Garland ISD board of trustees member Linda Griffin, who has served the district since 1998, was the first-ever Black GISD board trustee. During Black History Month, the district produced a video in which Griffin tells her story from attending a segregated high school to becoming the GISD board president. She has spent more than 20 years advocating for the students in Garland, Rowlett and Sachse.
Background
Griffin attended Rochelle High School in Lakeland, Florida. The school, as well as the neighborhood in which she lived, was segregated.
“Although we lived in a segregated part of the city, I had a rich upbringing with my mother and father,” she said. “I was valedictorian. I was on student council and in service organizations.”
She attended Tennessee State University after high school and then went on to Columbia University in New York.
Early employment
When she finished school, she went to work at Ross Perot’s company, Electronic Data Systems. She was one of the few females and one of the only Blacks in the System Engineer Development Program.
When the future GISD trustee left EDS, she joined Fidelity Union Life Insurance. Tired of living in apartments, she began to look for a house and found the price of homes in Garland close to what she could afford.
Youth involvement
She married a minister who hoped to start a church and she helped by knocking on doors in the community to find new members. The church, St. Marks Baptist Church, was great at attracting young people and built a large youth department. It was then that Griffin decided that much needed to be done for the community’s youth.
“I became keenly aware of some of the students’ needs,” she said. “The students at the church and in the community inspired me to look a little deeper into Garland ISD. As a result, it appeared to me that with my corporate background, I had some expertise that I could render to the board.”
Griffin first ran for a board of trustees place in 1997 but was unsuccessful. However, she won the next year.
“I knew that I couldn’t let my kids down at the church, the kids in the community,” she said.
Griffin knew that she needed to press on and make it happen — to become the first African American school board member in the Garland ISD.
On the board
As a new trustee, she worked diligently to become knowledgeable and meet the challenges of the role.
“I really focused on understanding the data, trying to get to what I needed to understand what I needed to vote on for the benefit of all kids,” Griffin said. “Then, it was a proud moment for me at the close of the May 2007 board meeting…when I had been elected as the president of the Garland Independent School District board of trustees.”
She explained why she still wishes to serve as a trustee.
“I continue to serve because I love children. I have a passion for children,” Griffin said. “For 22 years, I’ve had the same ABC motto – Always Benefit Children. When I look back and see the successes of this district and I look into the future as everything is changing, there are still things that we need to do.”