Why are you running for CCSD Trustee? What is your vision of success for this role? 

As a parent of two middle school students and a teacher of 19 years, I am tired of a dysfunctional school board that does not improve education; for that reason, I chose to run for the school board. My vision of success includes increasing graduation rates to 90% actual REAL college and career readiness, not just diplomas for attendance, reforming school discipline because our schools must be safe so our students can learn, and our staff can do their jobs, and increasing teacher recruitment and retention because every student deserves a licensed, qualified teacher.

How do you define student success? What experience do you have and what role do you intend to play in advocating for student success?

I define it as academic growth. My oldest son started in CCSD in a self-contained kindergarten autism classroom. Next year, he will be going to West Tech; he achieved a 97th percentile on the PSAT math and 58% on English. Every student may not be able to achieve grade level proficiency, but every student can achieve strong academic growth. One goal I have is to increase graduation rates to 90%. Every parent should feel safe sending their children to school. As a teacher, I have told my parents that my number one priority is to keep their children safe; if their child does not feel safe in the classroom, they will not be able to learn.

As for my experience in advocating for students, it is hard to put into words the number of times I have advocated for the students in my classroom and the school that I teach at. Many of those same students have been ignored by prior teachers, but I have managed to give them the support they desperately needed. I have consistently advocated for my own children in the district. Some schools have made that very easy and worked with me, setting a role model example, while with others, it has been a constant battle.

How I intend to advocate for student success is through accountability, transparency, community involvement, and improving overall academics. Many schools don’t have qualified math teachers, and in the early grades, many children have not learned numeric awareness the way they should. There is not one quick, easy answer for student success, but I will start with transparency, accountability, and community involvement.

On the 2022 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), fourth-grade students, in Nevada, scored 6 points lower in math and 7 points lower in reading when compared to 2019. If elected, how can you use your position to ensure Nevada stops following this national trend and starts leading the way for student outcomes?

One of the best ways for this district to help lead the way for student outcomes is to realize that education must start at home. My wife would not even go to our child’s elementary school for three years because of how they treated her. It is important that schools treat families like partners, unfortunately, they often don’t.

Because of this, a few things I would advocate for include customer service training for all front office staff and administrators. We must improve school safety. Every teacher must not only be trained on how to use the minor behavior incident feature on Infinite Campus, but have the time to use it. Further, discipline and intervention must be implemented with the support of every school.

With Greater Community Support and a safe working environment at schools education can flourish.

What, if any, barriers currently exist to educational excellence and equity for every student? If elected to the Board of Trustees, how will you help eliminate these barriers?

Unfortunately, too many barriers exist for educational excellence and equity currently in this district. Some of these include school violence, lack of a comprehensive curriculum, shortage of certified teachers, insufficient quality professional development, and low community support.

If elected, I will work quickly to improve school safety. I will host town halls and advocate for all trustees to do the same, as well as provide customer service training for administrators and front office staff. By taking these actions, community support should greatly increase.

I would also like to point out that the new teacher contract has many benefits for hiring new teachers in the district. Unfortunately, it penalizes the teachers already here by not paying them the same wages for their education and experience. I would urge the board and work with them to find a solution to this problem. We must recruit, but we also must retain the quality teachers that we have, ensuring every classroom has a licensed teacher in it.

What do you believe are the top three most persistent challenges facing the CCSD Board of Trustees? What is an example of a bold approach you would propose to address one of those challenges?

The subtle, ongoing, and continuous effort to privatize our public education system.

School safety, not just student safety, but indeed, everyone in the buildings.

Transparency and accountability. One of many approaches I think helps address those threats is to hire private counsel for the Board.

In January four appointed members were added to the Board of Trustees. How will you leverage the expertise of these appointed members to best serve students? Do you think the appointed members should be voting members? 

With only 7 Board members, a majority can be reached with only 4 members. This caused some pretty serious problems for CCSD in the recent past. When 4 more members were added, a 4 person voting block was no longer enough to push a Great City Schools agenda through. So, you know what they did? They managed to disenfranchise government appointed members. It was a well executed, shameful and desperate maneuver to keep the public out of the process.

My early thoughts on getting these new members was that it was going to be foolish. I thought, “it’s going to take too long to get them caught up, they won’t understand”, etc., but they do very well. They take their appointment seriously, and they bring valuable experience into the Board meetings.

Research suggests that more than 50% of a board meeting should be focused on student outcomes. How would you ensure the board allocates this amount of time to student outcomes?

Student outcomes are important, but evaluating the Superintendent is important too. Purchasing is important, zoning, and bussing are important. Being a publicly elected steward of public education is important. I don’t plan on spending 50% of board meeting time on student outcomes. If the voters want someone to put on blinders and review spreadsheets full of test scores all day, they should vote for someone else.

If elected to the Board, how would you approach challenging conversations and/or criticisms that might arise from fellow Board members, stakeholders, and the broader community?

Humbly, of course. I’ve never been a Trustee before. I’ll have a great deal to learn. My constituents will be sending someone they believe can best represent them to the Board. Every Trustee was new at one point, and in this deeply divided Board with many active community members each doing their best to make their voices heard, there will be challenges, but remembering the voters that sent me to do the job will be the priority.

What key indicators would you use to assess the performance of CCSD’s Superintendent? How would you hold the Superintendent accountable?

School safety, staff recruitment and retention, academic progress, student attendance, community involvement, productive and effective negotiations with labor, consistent student discipline. Each of these items, and many many more are items which define a successful Superintendent. It’s a very hard job, but they are paid very well, and staffed very well to ensure the job gets done. If a Superintendent isn’t performing in a way the public should approve, we should find a new Superintendent.

In a recent survey, 77% of Nevada residents agreed that parents should be able to send their children to the public school they feel is best for their child, even if it is outside of their neighborhood. Do you agree? Please explain your reasoning.

I disagree because I believe this policy would negatively impact families on the lower socioeconomic side. I have the ability to drive my children to any part of town on any day. I understand many parents don’t have that same ability. As a teacher, I know one family that takes a bus to bring their young child to the elementary school at which I work. I feel the best way to improve school choice is to increase the number of magnet schools with varying programs and to improve overall academics and safety at all CCSD schools.

The following question was submitted by a current public high school student: How will you ensure students are put at the forefront of the decision making process as a member of the Board of Trustees, and what accountability measures would you put in place to make sure this happens? 

Outside of the easy, obvious answer, “by facilitating discourse in the classroom” we have an opportunity to listen to parents through public comment in Board meetings. Lately, community attendance at these meetings has been much lower than it can be, lower than it should be. Part of the problems that have contributed to lower meeting attendance has been the rowdy attendance of certain obstructors, as well as having a Superintendent that has no intention of listening to the people. I also think Town Halls and online meetings are another tool which can and should be used to communicate with the Board and Superintendent.

Without a meeting and a vote, I won’t be able to put accountability measures in place for other Trustees. I can however promise to be accessible online, maintain an active profile on social media, and work to remove policies that have silenced Trustees from speaking out as individuals. I find those existing policies to be contrary to democracy.