About
Chris Spalatin is a husband, father, small business owner and community leader with a passion for connecting people to opportunity and bringing people together to solve problems. He and his wife, Lindi, are raising their two children in Rouzan, between Southdowns and Pollard. He is running to represent District 7 on the East Baton Rouge School Board.
Chris is naturally a connector. Whether working with a small business owner, an employer, a nonprofit or a public agency, his approach is to listen, understand what people need, bring the right people to the table and find a practical way forward. He believes deeply in Baton Rouge and sees strong public schools as fundamental to the community's future.
Chris has more than 20 years of experience building businesses, managing organizations and developing partnerships across the private, public, nonprofit and higher education sectors. He spent ten years building and operating his own small business before moving to Baton Rouge, where his work increasingly focused on economic and community development.
Chris became involved with Focus Foods, a local startup that responded to an urgent need during the pandemic by providing meals to children when schools closed. That experience showed him firsthand how the business community can be an important partner in solving community problems.
At the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Chris helped entrepreneurs and small businesses connect with the programs and resources they needed to grow. Today, through the Louisiana SBDC, LSU Innovation Park and his consulting work, he continues helping entrepreneurs and organizations solve problems and pursue new opportunities.
Chris believes trust has to be earned through transparency, consistency and results. He won't pretend to have all the answers, but he will ask hard questions, listen to the people closest to the work, look at the evidence and be clear with the public about how and why he makes decisions.
Throughout his career, Chris has been trusted to manage businesses, budgets, public funds, partnerships and programs involving people and organizations with very different interests. He brings that same approach to public service: do the homework, understand the issue from different perspectives, bring people together to find the best path forward, and then measure whether what we're doing is actually working.
Chris will be an accessible, engaged representative who listens to families, educators and the broader community and makes sure their perspectives are considered in the decisions that affect our schools. He will communicate clearly about what the board is doing and why, support the superintendent and educators when things are working, and ask hard questions when they aren't.
Above all, Chris will keep the board focused on its job: setting clear expectations, providing responsible oversight and making decisions based on what gives students the best opportunity to succeed.
The Spalatin family is active at the Unified Jewish Congregation of Baton Rouge, where they often attend Friday night services and their children participate in Sunday school. Family, faith and community are an important part of their lives and a big part of why Chris cares so deeply about Baton Rouge’s future.
CHRIS' APPROACH
Chris believes good decisions start with doing the homework. He works to understand a problem from a broad range of perspectives, especially from the people closest to it. He looks at the data, asks questions and brings people together to identify the best path forward.
From there, the focus has to be on results. Chris believes in setting clear goals, taking action, measuring results and adjusting when something isn't working. He is pragmatic about solutions and less interested in where an idea comes from than whether it produces better outcomes for students.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
- East Baton Rouge Democratic Parish Executive Committee, District 12 representative
- South Central Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation League
- Young Entrepreneurs Academy of Baton Rouge mentor
- Baton Rouge Soccer Club coach and superfan
- YMCA basketball coach
CHRIS IS RUNNING TO BUILD GREAT SCHOOLS
One of their first major decisions Chris' family made was figuring out where their oldest child would go to kindergarten. They explored neighborhood, magnet, charter and other public school options, and found the process surprisingly complicated and overwhelming. That experience gave Chris an early appreciation for how difficult it can be for families simply trying to understand their options and find a great school for their child.
Chris has always actively looked for ways to make a positive impact in the community. He has been struck by how often challenges are met with a sense that this is simply the way things have always been. But he has also met people across Baton Rouge who are hungry for change and believe in what this community can become. He shares that optimism and believes great public schools are fundamental to Baton Rouge's future. EBR Schools are showing real signs of progress, and Chris decided to run because he wants to help build on that momentum.
