Wayzata Central Middle School Educator Invited to SOTU Address

A staff member of Wayzata Public Schools received special attention at Thursday night’s State of the Union address.

President Joe Biden mentioned Keenan Jones during the address as he talked about student loan forgiveness.

“I was told I couldn’t universally just change the way in which we dealt with student loans,” said Biden. “I fixed two student loan programs that already existed to reduce the burden of student debt for nearly four million Americans, including nurses, firefighters and others in public service … like Keenan Jones, a public educator in Minnesota, who’s with us tonight.”

Jones was the invited guest of First Lady Jill Biden. He works as the family partnership lead at Wayzata Central Middle School, a role that helps students and families who have been historically marginalized.

The president mentioned Jones to tout administration fixes to provide additional student loan forgiveness as part of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Jones said he wrote an email to President Biden saying how the program helped him continue his teaching career.

“He’s educated hundreds of students so they can go to college now, he can help his own daughter pay for college,” said Biden. 

Biden also made a call to give public school teachers a raise.

Plymouth