Eight priorities. One responsibility.

A neighborhood school is more than a building. It is part of the structure of a community.

Children learn there, families organize their lives around it, employees invest years of work there, and communities build relationships around it. Closure or consolidation should be a last resort.

I will not support closing a neighborhood school until realistic alternatives have been publicly examined and the full long-term consequences are clear.

• Document workable alternatives before taking closure action.
• Count transportation, attendance, staffing, facility, and community effects—not only first-year savings.
• Give affected families, employees, and communities meaningful time to respond before a recommendation becomes effectively final.

We should respect what generations of Basin families and employees have built while keeping those schools strong for the generations coming next.

The public should help shape decisions about our schools—not merely react to them.

Parents, employees, students, and residents will not always agree, and they do not need to. They should still be able to understand what is being considered, why, and what alternatives remain.

A public meeting should not be the first time the public sees the substance of a major decision.

• Publish major recommendations and supporting information early enough for meaningful review.
• Explain complicated proposals in plain language and hear voices from across Basin communities.
• Protect room for genuine board discussion, respectful disagreement, and a search for common ground.

Listening does not mean everyone gets the answer they want. It means people deserve to be heard before the answer is decided.

Every public dollar should have a clear purpose—and a result the public can see.

A school district budget is complicated, but the public should still be able to follow what we have, what we are committed to, and how today’s choices affect the next several years.

MUSD spends more per student on administration than comparable districts while still projecting cuts. Before closing a school or reducing a service, I will ask what is driving those costs, what results that spending is producing, and what can be reduced first.

As a trustee, I will ask for the assumptions behind the numbers—not simply the number presented for a vote.

• Show multi-year costs and assumptions, not only the current-year figure.
• Examine administration, consulting, contracts, and recurring central-office commitments before cutting closest to students.
• Make Measure C and other major public commitments easy to follow from approval through completion.

Open books are not enough. The public should be able to understand the story the numbers are telling.

Students benefit when skilled people are respected, heard, and able to stay.

Teachers, classified employees, administrators, and support staff hold practical knowledge that does not always appear in a report. Changes work better when the people doing the work are part of the conversation.

• Consult employees before changing roles, schedules, systems, or procedures that affect their work.
• Support safe conditions, realistic implementation, and clear responsibility.
• Treat recruitment, retention, and institutional knowledge as service-quality and fiscal issues.

Good schools depend on good people being able to do good work.

Students need solid academics and more than one route to a good future.

Reading, writing, mathematics, science, civics, and strong classroom instruction remain the foundation. But not every successful future looks the same.

• Protect strong fundamentals while expanding practical and career-connected learning.
• Build mentorship, internship, and work-based learning relationships across the Basin.
• Connect college, trades, technology, media, arts, and public service to real opportunities after graduation.

A strong school system should open doors and give young people the knowledge and confidence to choose their own path.

Technology should be a useful tool—not the default setting for childhood or instruction.

Working in school technology, I see both its value and its cost. Digital tools can expand access and prepare students for a changing world, but they also require money, maintenance, judgment, and balance.

Modern education is not measured by how many screens are on.

• Choose the right tool for each lesson, including books, handwriting, discussion, laboratories, arts, and hands-on work when they serve students more effectively.
• Review device purchasing and replacement cycles so spending follows actual instructional need.
• Teach digital judgment, privacy, media literacy, and AI literacy without turning every lesson into screen time.

Change should make our schools more capable—not simply more complicated.

The district should be part of the life of the Basin—not an island within it.

Our communities hold knowledge, businesses, trades, arts, public agencies, libraries, nonprofits, colleges, parents, and people who have spent decades building life here. Schools should make better use of those relationships.

• Develop local mentorship, career exposure, student projects, and community partnerships.
• Build stronger relationships with Copper Mountain College, Basin employers, and public institutions.
• Connect students with the history, skills, institutions, and people of their own communities.

Children should be ready to explore the wider world while still feeling connected to the place that raised them.

The board’s job is to hear community concerns, ask questions, set direction, and verify results.

A constructive relationship with the superintendent matters, but so does independent judgment. The board is accountable to the public and should understand what it is voting on.

I will not treat a staff recommendation, consultant report, or projected savings figure as the end of the board’s inquiry.

• Set measurable public goals and review progress on a regular schedule.
• Ask for alternatives when a major recommendation presents only one path.
• Follow decisions through implementation and compare promised outcomes with actual results.

Good oversight means listening, preparing, exercising independent judgment, and being willing to explain a decision afterward.