Fartun Ahmed

Fartun Ahmed has been a member of the Hopkins community for over 20 years, including attending Eisenhower Elementary School, Hopkins, North Junior High, and HHS.

“I grew up and went through the Hopkins School District and as a first generation immigrant, I feel like our school district, especially with the tradition and vision of excellence, helped me foster and craft my academic excellence,” Ahmed said.

Ahmed has spent the majority of her career advocating for marginalized communities. Now, she wants to use that experience to help minority families.

“Not all families have the same access to resources and information. I know that there was a multitude of information that my parents did not know about. A lot of it is intercultural competency,” Ahmed said.

Ahmed’s experiences working for a range of organizations in and out of Hopkins has given her an understanding of how to build curriculums for a variety of ages and maintain high budgets.

Already, Ahmed has been able to bring the Hopkins community closer to their schools by inviting Somali families to discuss their concerns with the new superintendent and nine Hopkins principals. As a school board member, her biggest goal is to make sure that everyone’s voices are heard and to equalize academic opportunities for students of all backgrounds.

“My idea in creating that meeting was to develop a relationship between the school district and the Somali parents, so that they don’t have to feel like nobody is listening or nobody wants to hear their input or how they are feeling,” Ahmed said.