One reason I’m running for the school board is that a school needs to be a place to lift all students. We do not need division between students, teachers, parents, and the community. We need to find the common ground and work together for the betterment of us all. 

Our kids deserve it! 

Issues and Hot Topics

I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions about the following issues/ topics.

Masks and Vaccines

The government does not need to mandate masks or vaccines. Those are very personal decisions that need to be made with your healthcare professional. The decision and choice lie with the parents/ guardian.

Fiscal Responsibility

As a board member, it's important to remember that we are a fiduciary of the taxpayer dollar. When I was on the board at Juniper Ridge Community School, our board built a school on a budget and was fully transparent to our community. The JRCS board and administration worked collaboratively to build an amazing school. We utilized the resources we already had and attained multiple bids on projects.

Unfortunately, the ball has been dropped on past bond measures through a loss of transparency and communication with the community. In turn, we've lost their trust. I know our community wants to pay our teachers more and have new schools built. We need to regain that trust when asking to spend their taxpayer dollars. We do this by being very clear in our budgets.

Critical Race Theory/ Divisive Ideologies

I acknowledge and appreciate that D51 and Superintendent Dr. Diana Sirko, have stated it is not teaching college-level Critical Race Theory and is adhering to the Colorado Standards. Political ideologies should not be forced on students in public schools funded by taxpayers. Our children need to be taught how to think, not what to think.

Concerned parents, be assured that this will not infiltrate our school through the front or back door on my watch. Schools should teach an accurate and not always pleasant history, about our country, without forcing political ideologies.

I'm for the vision of Martin Luther King, not CRT. We need to unite around MLK's statement of "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

There are some fantastic solutions out there to address equality. One of them is by Dr. Carol Swaim. This amazing woman has developed Unity Training Solutions, whose mission is "To bring greater harmony to workplaces and educational institutions by respecting everyone's civil rights and equality under the law. To encourage Americans to rediscover and re-embrace our national motto: E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one)". This training is a win/ win solution. 

We cannot allow these kinds of political and social ideologies along with other agendas to take precious teaching time away from our teachers. School needs to be school. Our kids deserve it.

Performance

Looking back at the 2019 (pre-covid) Spring testing for grades 3-8 in Math and ELA, D51 scored lower than the state across the board. See graphic. We must come together to improve performance, our kids and community deserve it.

Leadership needs to look at new and practical approaches to help our students achieve. We must support our teachers and listen to them about what is working and what is not working. As a board member, I believe one solution is to have a group of teachers, a D51 board member, business owners, and community members come together to analyze, address and recommend solutions. The D51 board did something similar in 2008 when they needed a recommendation on making budget cuts. We can do the same to address performance and make D51 stand out in academic excellence for ALL students.

Teacher Pay and Class Size

We need to assess the hierarchy of our budget with the maximum amount of available dollars going to teachers and teacher aides. We actually need to get the money into the classrooms rather than just talking about it. In short, our teachers and aids need to be paid more, and the workload and class size need to be less, so our teachers can do what they are best at; teaching.

Special Education

Our SPED teachers are amazing and they too have a lot on their plates. We have many kids with IEP’s. As mentioned above with teacher pay we need to address the needs we have with special education. First by listening to our SPED teachers and what they need, secondly listening to parents and teachers to know what is working and not working for our kids.

Suicide Prevention/ Mental Health

We leaders must continue to be vigilant in helping our students regarding mental health and suicide prevention. We've seen children as young as eight years old attempting suicide and as young as ten taking their own life. As leaders, we must come together to help our students and community.

You can check out the 2020 Mesa County Suicide Report here. You can check out SD51 Suicide Prevention Plan here. I am committed to bringing help, continuous awareness, and resources to our students and community.