Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman is USA TODAY'S Women of the Year honoree from Kentucky

Jacqueline Coleman is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

Jacqueline Coleman made it a mission early in her career to ensure her social studies students understood how government worked.

In her second term as Kentucky’s lieutenant governor, she’s still educating, but her audience has shifted. At the Kentucky Capitol she pushes to elevate students' voices and needs so that lawmakers understand what's best for children across the commonwealth.

In her first term, she was the driving force behind waiving the GED fee. The cost was often a barrier to individuals who needed to take that test to expand job prospects. She also pushed for a student-led mental health initiative, which has garnered more than $40 million in federal funding for Kentucky based schools. That covers about half the counties in Kentucky, she said, and her work isn’t done until every Kentucky child has those resources in their school.

In her second term, she’s eying universal pre-kindergarten for Kentucky 4-year-olds. The logic there is simple, she says, and it's one way to intervene in the school-to-prison pipeline. Third grade literacy rates forecast prison populations, and kindergarten readiness is what forecasts third grade literacy rates. Having access to pre-K can determine kindergarten readiness.

Coleman's work helping children and families has earned her recognition as the Kentucky honoree for USA TODAY'S Women of the Year.

Coleman is the state's highest elected teacher and says she became an accidental advocate because she saw firsthand how much her school needed and how many students were missing out on opportunities because of a lack of funding. As the daughter of a Kentucky state representative, Coleman understood the importance of participating in government.

But it wasn’t until the education uproar in the statehouse in 2018 when legislation threatened Kentucky teachers' pensions that Coleman really dove in. She knew the attorney general at the time, now Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, could stop the legislature from taking their pensions. Her conversations with Beshear eventually led Coleman to be his running mate in the 2019 election.

Because education has been her life’s work, she approaches every issue that comes to her office through that lens. Whether they’re tackling health care, juvenile justice or workforce development, there are often ways to break problematic cycles through the education system.

Coleman brings the same attitude to politics as she did playing basketball for Centre College and later leading a high school basketball team as a coach to five consecutive record-breaking seasons.

Athletics taught her about “tough skin.” Through basketball she learned to drown out any noise or the assumptions about her. Being on the court meant staying focused, figuring what needed to be done and doing the right thing, while also understanding tough truths and taking the hard advice that comes with the sport.

When Coleman was teaching in the classroom, she had about 100 students per year that she could impact.

Now from the statehouse, the scope is so much bigger. She feels responsible for every child in Kentucky schools.

This interview has been edited for context and clarity.

What was it like as a teacher to see your students latch on to the importance of government in your classroom?

It really was why I went to work every day, to see that light bulb come on. To see students understand what they can and should do, and how to fight for the things that they believed in, in a productive way where they could get things done.

I think the best compliment I ever got as a teacher was when I had a student tell me, “I hate social studies, but I love your class.”

Who paved the way for you?

So many people, of course, but my first thought is Martha Layne Collins, the first female governor in Kentucky. There were four women who served in lieutenant governor's office before me. I think about the women in the legislature who ran for office when it wasn't common for women to be in office.

I am very cognizant of the women who came before me, who made this possible. If you would have told me when I was in high school that a lieutenant governor could give birth while in office, I would have told you, "you're crazy." (Coleman’s daughter, Evelynne, was born less than two months after her inauguration in 2020.) But because of the work that all of these other women have done to make it possible, not only am I allowed to sit in this seat, but I'm allowed to do things that have never been done before. … I'm always grateful for their courage and their service that made something like this possible for me.

What is your proudest moment?

I think my proudest moment would be when Emma, who is my adopted daughter, signed a Division I basketball scholarship.

She played basketball for me (as a coach). She didn’t have a great home life, and so she moved in with us. She couldn’t read in high school. Basketball was the vehicle that was our connection, but helping her to understand that she could only play basketball if she got the grades was a pretty big challenge. But it worked.

So not only was she the first person in her biological family to graduate high school, now she's the only one that's graduated from college. Now she is an RN, and I could not be more proud of the life that she has made for herself.

How do you overcome adversity?

I just never back down.

When you are an athlete and a coach, you fail every few minutes. You make a mistake every few minutes. I used to tell my players, “It's not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it that matters.”

So when you make one mistake, don't get distracted and make another one. You’ve got to refocus and make sure that you move forward. Learning how to gather yourself and keep moving forward is a very underappreciated skill. But I just never back down when I want something and I know it's right. In this role as lieutenant governor, if I know a policy would really help kids and help people, then I’m undeterred.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I think I would tell myself that "I belong." So often I think women suffer from imposter syndrome, and you think that maybe you shouldn't speak up, or maybe you shouldn't be in the room or at the table. And I would tell my younger self, "You absolutely belong there. That's where you need to be."

So I've tried to remember that myself, in this position as well as any other. That's what I tell young women every single day, so I have to remember that myself. ... I always say, “When I'm telling you (that you belong), I'm telling myself too.”

Reach Courier Journal reporter Maggie Menderski at mmenderski@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Jacqueline Coleman is USAT TODAY'S Women of the Year Kentucky honoree