I think I'm uniquely suited to be on the school board because of that educational background and also because of um I put in the work very clearly of being present both in our school community in the classroom directly and also um in a much larger capacity in building relationships across the Spectrum with different folks within our community to make sure that as many voices are heard as possible.

I don't believe that there is a a teacher um currently on the school board so I think that's something that I would like to uh provide a unique perspective to as well.

Education has truly been uh liberatory for me it's been a vehicle that's empowered me to break cycles of generational poverty and I'm really excited to give back by serving on the school board.

I know that right now we have over 30 languages that are represented in uh in the Columbia height schools and uh I think one one of the stats I think is most um interesting to me is that 48% are English Learners the English is not their first language and that's one of our uh very unique challenges right now to be able to uh work through and as a teacher um I'll be an advocate uh for fellow teachers in the classroom to be able to uh bridge that and uh get through and make those connections.

I'm excited about uh implementing and adding some measures that we can actually look at for how we're doing in reaching the equity goals as stated um I also know that uh in my professional life when when working to address Equity across organizations that it's really important that it's not an isolated Endeavor and that um I know that we have Equity work groups within our district and it's important to make sure that it's implemented schoolwide and districtwide and so that's one of the things I'd love to look at how we can support.

Our diversity in Columbia Heights is our strength and I think we really need to make sure that we um that we honor that that also means that um when we say all belong and all succeed all means all every student who walks through that door deserves to have an education that is respectful of their culture their individual learning needs the communities with which um they grow in and thrive in and our staff and families also deserve that.

The priorities that I have on my website um and that I've been hearing a lot from from Community um as I have my candidate and I've been hearing from families and students and stakeholders and teachers are that we need to address the well-being of our students um we need to also look at how we can recover from learning loss and um make sure that our educators are supported in being able to have smaller classrooms um to be fully staffed to have the support staff that they need.

I would uh like to work on achieving the academic performance of the kids since the uh scores are still quite low from 2019 till now they continue to go down in reading and math and that's a you know that's a priority with me because I need to be able to have a productive life to and to know these um reading and math skills and second of all I would uh Champion parental involvement I think it's key for parents to be involved with their children's education and know everything as every aspect of the education that's going on to the curriculum to health to every subject that's being taught.

The MCAS are a one sides only um and it does not it's not it does not give a complete picture of where our children are where our students are and how they're doing one of the things that we're working on is making sure that we have Assessments in other languages that we can continue to help and address is this truly TR a problem with reading and understanding and comprehension or math or is this a language concern because guess what we have tests that can do that the MCA is is not multifaceted and I'm not saying throw it away and it doesn't mean anything it does mean things I'm saying that there is a total picture that we need to look at and I will continue to talk about that um at the board table.

I think we can streamline the process of registering for classes both at Columbia Academy our middle school and at the high school um originally last year I know that the high school students came home with P well well they didn't come home with it they were encouraged to fill it out um print out a sheet and fill it out in paper which was challenging for a lot of reasons we don't have a printer at our house anymore and I don't know very many people who do and I wasn't going to pay $3 to print one thing off we need to be and continue to look at the systems that we have and whether or not they make sense we are in 20124 filling out that by paper is probably not the best way to do it I think we can do better and continue to offer um the this the wide variety of things that we do instead of wasting our time um with pen and paper for something that's so important.

One of the things that that uh really dawned on me when I when you asked the question was that I believe that the only foreign language we're currently offering is Spanish and with a school district that has 36 languages right now it's uh rather surprising that we're not offering any of those languages so that uh we can uh you know diversify ourselves and talk you know with all of those unique languages that we have here.

I also think that there is a lack of um communication that we could actually improve within the district so that families know the classes that are offered I've heard from families that um they didn't know that we had work wood shop they didn't know about some of the electives um and those are important to them it's important that we um have the opportunity for students to learn about the trades in high school.

It's really important for us to also have good relationships and communication with um our Congress people um our city uh elected officials and also County elected officials on top of the state legislature um you know through my advocacy I have worked um with professional groups with uh National Association of Social Workers uh nasw Minnesota um prior to being on the school board I also uh formed citizens for safer streets which was an initiative to help um bring safety to the 49th Avenue in front of Valley View and Columbia Heights.

If the state and federal government feels that this is important enough to mandate they should fund it if they don't want to uh fund it then they shouldn't mandated and they should give us the flexibility to make our own choices here at the local level and uh that's probably the number one thing that I want to impress upon uh those levels of government that we're an independent school district and in order for us to have that Independence we need to be able to have that flexibility to do that.

I have professional experience in lobbying policy and an advocacy at the legislature and I have had some success in uh being able to get bipartisan support for bills particularly around maternal and infant Health that have Early Education outcomes um and have successfully collaborated with state senators like Mary kunish and Jim abler to be able to pass that.

Our funding is um you know we have those mandates especially around special education the special education cross subsidy deficit previous boards have seen me come up every year and talk about that before um I join the board I continue to talk about it and now I also talk about the special or the um English language uh the cross subsidy we have with trying to work with our M multilingual Children and Families um those are massive deficits and we are required to pay now and then somehow come up with um you know the money while waiting until the very next year to get that funding.

My position on that was that there were two different options to go with there was the higher amount and there was a lower amount and I was an advocate of going with that lower amount uh even though that was still a significant increase and uh uh so that was my position on that uh to go for that second uh that second highest one uh with respect to some of those taxpayers that have uh difficulty paying and in particular right now because we're dealing with double digit tax increases not just from the school district but also from the city and the county it's it's it's a tough situation.

I would definitely support a future referendum I believe that being in this space I've learned to trust my district and honestly if our teachers our students are saying they need something we should believe them and support them.

I do uh appreciate the question and you know as someone who is neurodivergent myself um I'm on the autism spectrum and I do appreciate being able to um you know have that support and that respect um of uh my uniqueness and my differences as well as uh what I bring to the table.

I think it's all about being inclusive right making sure everyone feels like they belong as Miss grin keeps saying right all means all um it doesn't mean to teach anyone who isn't that lifestyle a lifestyle it means to include the people who identify as a certain thing in the space that they are in so I think that that just means making it safe um like some others have said and making sure that they feel like they have a place to learn in.

One of the things that I did as a Schoolboard member when I first came on was I made sure as we were going through policies that we removed language that gendered and that we talked about um Guardians because not every every child lives with their parent directly there's lots of different families and part of that is making sure that those policies are reflective.

I love this question because as I mentioned I am a lifelong learner um and I very much want to embody and support others to be lifelong Learners as a Schoolboard member.

One of the biggest things was um again as Miss pway had said earlier we as a school board um believe in doing the things that we are asking of our Educators and staff so we spent a long time with the science of reading because we can't talk about um literacy and and the importance of that without also understanding a little bit more about what our educators are doing in learning because it has changed a lot.

One of the things that I just recently did is my students had their um back to school um recital and uh so as part of that you know we had three of my students that were playing a song by Beethoven so I decided to uh look up some facts about that and the life of Beethoven and you know just you know just getting some background so that people can not just appreciate the the music but also appreciate um the origins of that.

Oh of course because you know I totally would be in favor of that because parents are the sole educators of their children and they you know should know what's being taught in the school so I'm advocate for that.

I would trust teachers to teach a appropriate material um as a school board member uh I'm not hiring teachers right I'm trusting that the teachers are being hired by you know someone who I who I've hired right as a school board member as our superintendent and um I trust their judgment I feel like um that kind of support um is is amazing for our teachers to have so that they can have that space where they can teach the way they want to.

One of the first things I did when I got on the board again was um look at our policies and something that um my my oldest son who has gone to school his whole life here um when he was 18 months our babysitter who was a senior at our school here in our school district told us that she had just staged a walk out over um concerns related to the dress code I was very sad when I got on the board four years ago to realized that it was still the same dress code that she had walked out on um and so it became really important to me and um to other members of the administration and the board that there should be no decisions without us right.