Our students will achieve excellence if the Board sets a high bar for academic achievement. During the most recent superintendent performance goal setting in April 2022, I was the only Board member to advocate for ambitious literacy goals with higher goals for early grades starting at 1st grade. I urged the Superintendent at the time to build a legacy beyond a 55% literacy rate by setting a multi-year literacy goal of 90%. At the December 2023 Board meeting, I referred to student outcomes as the Board’s “north star”. I was one of two board members who voted for student outcome-focused training for the Board and district staff. The training would be designed specifically for school boards for the purpose of ensuring that the Board is more student outcome-focused, while building trust with the community.  

Set high expectations for student outcomes in literacy and math.

Retain and attract the best teachers and staff.

Given the concentration of private and charter schools throughout the school district, it’s especially important to offer competitive pay in order to retain and attract the best teachers and staff. PUSD prides itself on having employees who are alumni of the school district, but that alone is not enough to retain employees. In recent years, PUSD has made incremental strides on offering competitive pay, but we’re not there yet. In the January 2024 Board meeting, I voted to approve the legal services evaluating our district property to efficiently manage our property and identify ways for generating revenue. Additionally, as the Chair of the Legislative Advocacy Committee in 2023, I led the effort to put a parcel tax on the November 2024 ballot. The revenue generated from the parcel tax can finally close the pay gap with neighboring districts and enable PUSD to retain and attract quality teachers and staff, including special education teachers, nurses, counselors, and psychologists.

Strengthen our public education system.

Public education is foundational to our democracy. Whether or not you have children/grandchildren in public schools, strong public schools make strong communities. I'm especially proud of my advocacy work in support of public education by joining a contingent of approximately 300 California school trustees on a legislative visit to Washington D.C. in May 2023 through California School Boards Association. We urged our federal legislators to fulfill their promise to fund special education at 40%, to support educator preparation, training and recruitment programs, to strengthen student privacy and cyber security infrastructure, and to streamline and increase funding for mental health programs for K-12 students. I have successfully secured the second federal advocacy trip for April 2024.