In 2023, I was invited to attended our school board candidate forum—simply as a concerned community member—hoping to learn more about those running for office. What I witnessed that night was eye-opening and raised serious concerns for me —politics and partisan rhetoric was being injected into a race that should focus on our schools and kids.

That experience compelled me to start attending nearly every school board meeting—not just to observe, but to better understand how things work and where we can improve.

What I observed is our school board is doing okay, and I’ve told Ryan Carpenter that I thought he has done a good job of resolving some tough issues over the past two years.

However, I’ve also seen some problems – specifically, parents calling the news media, gossiping on-line, and spreading mis-information and dis-information before they talked to their district and at-large board members to help answer their questions or resolve their issues. This needs to stop!

We need to do a better job of working with parents, so:

• every parent knows who their district board member is,

• feels comfortable talking to them about their concerns,

• feels they are being heard and treated with respect,

• and receives timely responses and feedback.

If school board members are not responsive and respectful of parents concerns, parents need to let the board know, so this can be addressed.

I am focusing on parent involvement as my core issue because I believe if we can improve parent/community communications, it will some many others issue for us.

My second priority is facilities maintenance. The high school is currently facing several serious issues that require immediate attention. I am committed to ensuring these problems are resolved without delay. Once addressed, I will work with the board and administration to review existing policies on construction management and facilities maintenance to help prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.