As an educator with more than 20 years of experience, including lauded stints as principal of Canyons District’s Mount Jordan and Albion middle schools, Dr. Molly Hart knows first-hand how Utah laws and rules impact the classroom. Within moments of reading proposed legislation or reviewing suggested new statewide teacher-licensing policies, Hart can spot and articulate how the state’s teachers, principals, and paraeducators would be affected, both positively and otherwise, by the proposals. This “educator lens,” as she calls it, is among the skills and talents she brings to her position as an elected member of the Utah State Board of Education, which oversees Utah’s public education system. During her tenure on the state board, an unprecedented number of education-related bills have been proposed during legislative sessions, politically driven culture wars have influenced public discourse about schools, and Utah public schools were faced with the fallout from the legislature’s vote to start the state’s first voucher program. But even in times of turmoil, Hart’s creative approach to problem-solving, honed by her years as a school administrator, has proven beneficial for her constituents, a significant number of which live in Canyons School District. Rare is the issue that Hart views strictly as a “yes or no” proposition. To her, the answers to complicated questions aren’t found in divisive dialogues or defensive diatribes. Instead, they are found in the margins, where the common ground of oppositional sides often intersect. As for her foray into the world of politics, she sought her position to make a difference, to give back, to do more on behalf of the educators and support staff who bring schools to life. “I wanted to do more. I didn’t want to navigate the expectations after they were implemented. I wanted to be on the state board so that principals and teachers didn’t have to navigate the issues and manage the paperwork over being with parents and being with students,” she says. “I want, still to this day, to make a difference in the daily work that teachers and principals do in Utah.”  It’s for all these reasons, and many more, the Canyons Board of Education and Administration are proud to present the 2024 Apex Award for Elected Official of the Year to Dr. Molly Hart.