PRIORITIES | PUSD Trustee D4

My Priorities

Let’s elevate our School Board culture to improve District outcomes.

The Challenge

Our current Board of Education struggles to align on the right priorities to achieve necessary outcomes for our students. Part of the reason for this is that personal divisions are getting in the way of building bridges to achieve more productive governance.

We need a better way forward to address our biggest issues:

Persistent learning loss, exacerbated by the COVID era, continues to deeply affect our most vulnerable students.
Declining student mental health and lack of staff training to address it.
Underdeveloped support services for Special Education students, English language learners and Foster Youth.
Insufficient professional development, growth pathways, fair compensation and affordable housing opportunities for teachers and staff.
Lack of a longer-term vision for District sustainability and success.

The Opportunity

The Board has a chance to create a team culture, laser-focused on student outcomes as our guiding light. Our Board can work better together, respecting common differences while actively looking for common consensus on ways to move forward, quickly, and with purpose. Let’s set the model for how our community can work together to engage in the conversation about our District’s future.

What I Will Do

I will leverage my professional skills as an strategic planner, active listener, and facilitator to help build bridges within the Board to reach faster consensus on the issues we face.
I’ll stand up for effective governance processes that develop clear and measurable student outcomes as the basis of prioritization and decision-making.

Let’s envision a greater educational future that works for all of us.

The Challenge

There are many realities ahead that threaten to undermine the success of our District. We know that many PUSD families struggle to live affordably in our community, seeking to relocate out of our District to other regions or states. We know that fewer kids are being born today. Recent assessments show that our current District population of 14,000 students will drop to less than 10,000 by 2030. Over 52% of students living in the District residence area attend private or charter schools. No other community in America has to share its total student population with so many special education interests.

Our current Board has not managed to address this issue head-on. While PUSD has a 5-year strategic plan to guide implementation of programming, it is incumbent on the Board to develop a longer-term “north star” vision of where this District is headed and sell that vision to the community.

The Opportunity

PUSD didn’t cause most of these affordability and demographic problems, but the Board has a duty to work together to fight for the future we want for our public schools. We have an opportunity to design a District that best serves all kids and provides them with the best futures possible.

What I Will Do

As a strategic thinker, problem-solver and visionary, I’ll leverage my years of productive relationships with elected officials, parent advocacy groups, labor partners, teachers, staff, students, community partners and fellow board members to advocate for a clear, tangible, long-term community-led vision for this District. A vision that continues to innovate programmatically but also provides valuable community services closest to the students that can benefit from them.
I will work with the PUSD community to envision bold, creative, sustainable solutions to address long-lasting problems instead of “band-aids” that offer quick fixes.
I’ll leverage my communication skills to help ensure that the community understands our Board vision, not just in words, but in pictures, demonstrations, proofs of concept or prototypes, all so that the public will be able to understand the future and weigh in on it.

Let’s improve educational equity through better access.

The Challenge

PUSD offers many opportunities for its students, including open enrollment signature programs that are models for other districts in terms of providing unique learning pathways. But we don’t do enough to ensure that all of our students have access to these potential programs. And often, we offer these programs at the behest of those who could benefit from them the most. If we stand behind our signature programs as means to drive innovation in education and ways to close opportunity gaps, we need to stand behind better access.

The Opportunity

We need to improve availability of school transportation systems so that the distance between home and school is never a barrier to connecting students to the best educational program for them. If we cannot afford to own or lease school buses to satisfy our current transportation needs, we should look to forge operating agreements with existing city transportation networks for dedicated “school access” routes across town.

We have the chance to improve culturally responsive communications so that all families have full awareness of the programs that are available to them.

We know that equitable family engagement in education leads to amazing outcomes for students, families and communities, and it’s a key component in building trust. We have the chance to ensure that parents and caregivers from every background are given abundant support so that they can effectively engage with their students in the ways most effective for them.

What I Will Do

As a strategic thinker, problem solver and consensus builder, I will advocate for improved public outreach and live that example by regularly engaging with my constituents to understand their unique challenges, their ideas and to build community consensus on focused solutions.
We live in a community with vast networks of untapped resources. Through my connections as a community-focused advocate, I’ll stand for and promote increased partnerships to ensure our programs reach all families and students, especially those who can benefit from them the most.