Activist Toolkit

1. What motivates you to seek this office? What skills, experiences, and perspectives would you bring to the District, and why would those contributions be valuable in the role of School Board member?

Candidate video response

I originally collected signatures to run for school board last fall because I was concerned that students that needed in-person instruction wouldn’t be provided with a choice to return to the classroom. During the return-to-school process it became clear to me that  a stronger, more collaborative relationship must be created between D97 and its stakeholders in order for our schools to be successful and for all students to meet their full potential. My children will be in this district for the next 8 years and complaining isn’t productive; I want to be a part of the solution.

I have 15 years of corporate experience in the automotive and real estate industries. Throughout my career I leveraged my strengths of collaborative team building and creative problem solving to align different parties, often with conflicting priorities, towards achieving unified goals. In my leadership roles my primary focuses were culture improvement and increasing communication, transparency and collaboration. I feel that my strengths are aligned with my vision of improving the dynamic between D97, parents and teachers so that all children in Oak Park can experience their own version of academic success.

2. What are the three biggest challenges or opportunities you expect District 97 to face in the coming years, and how would you work with your colleagues to address these challenges or realize these opportunities?

The most pressing challenge is creating solutions around safely returning students to in-person school to maximize instruction time. Addressing this challenge will directly impact two areas that require immediate attention; equity and the opportunity gap and learning loss.

The creation of multiple return-to-school scenarios for both elementary and middle schools, for the remainder of this school year and next, must be a major focus in order for D97 to be nimble with the changing circumstances of the pandemic. D97 must identify barriers for students that choose to remain remote and remove them when appropriate. D97 must prioritize providing consistent schedules for elementary students that have already returned or plan to return to the classroom. The middle schools’ focus must be returning students to the classroom more frequently and with a focus on actual curriculum. Other suburban middle schools have students safely change classes and follow a more “normal” schedule and we should explore ways to provide that same experience for our students.

Closing the opportunity gap and focusing on equity must continue to be high priority. D97 has done important foundational work but must collaborate with teachers to develop plans and create pragmatic solutions to better support the students behind the opportunity gap statistics in the classroom. 

Learning loss is a real concern for parents, and D97 won’t be able to design programs to support students and “catch them back up” if we don’t have an accurate measure of where our students are at academically. MAP testing must take place before the end of the school year so parents and teachers have an apples-to-apples comparison of how students have grown since the onset of the pandemic and to highlight areas of strength and concern.

3. How will you balance competing interests, such as your own deeply-held values and opinions, input from District staff and fellow board members, and diverse views from the community? How would you describe your leadership style and your decision-making process generally? 

I would balance competing interests by always coming back to seeing individual students and seeking out their stories as my guiding principle. 

I’ve always been a collaborative leader. I seek out all perspectives to understand how decisions impact stakeholders. I’ve never managed from behind a desk - decision-makers need to know the boots-on-the-ground reality and have input from people on the front lines as well as the end users in order to be successful. I would be intentional about creating a culture of accessibility and respect; if people don’t feel comfortable sharing their ideas then the best solution or unintended consequences might not be brought to the table.

I favor open, clear and candid communication, and this has always made it easier to take ownership of my decisions - you can’t please everyone all the time, but when people understand your perspective and know that you’ve recognized theirs, you foster an environment of mutual respect even when you have to agree to disagree.

4. What values would you bring to the budgeting process? What changes do you favor in the process by which the District conducts its budgeting and fiscal planning?

I think it’s critical for D97 leadership to challenge their mindset and approach the budget as if it was their own personal budget to be more accountable to taxpayers. I spent 11 years working at Toyota Motor Sales and the concept of “kaizen,” or continuous improvement, is deeply embedded in the way I think, so I would apply this mindset to find ways to challenge norms, create efficiencies and eliminate waste. 

I achieved success throughout my career by being a generalist rather than a specialist, and, because of this, I’m confident in admitting what I don’t know and never afraid to ask questions. I have experience managing multi-million dollar budgets and I feel that my business experience will allow me to bring a different perspective to this process.

5. How will you balance the community's desire to decrease the property tax burden with the need to maintain the quality of our schools, create an equitable learning environment for all students, and address facilities issues?

It’s my firm belief that strong schools sustain communities, and in order for Oak Park to thrive and to be a sought-after destination to live, we must have high-performing schools. But I’m a homeowner whose property taxes have gone up over 20% in 6 years and also strongly believe that this sort of tax burden is unsustainable for families, whether they rent or own. It’s a “chicken or the egg” situation - in order to be a community that families seek out we need to have excellent schools, and schools need funding in order to offer an excellent educational experience.

If elected, I would challenge leadership to create efficiencies and prioritize spending. I would seek out data from other school districts to identify opportunities to maximize dollars spent, decrease waste and identify outliers. Many residents feel that D97 is administrator-heavy, so I would explore this concern and challenge D97 leadership to be more accessible to stakeholders and to make their value add felt by teachers and students.

I would encourage discussion around low-cost or no-cost community-supported programs, such as the “Cats and Dogs” tutoring program where OPRF students work directly with children at Beye. I would seek to protect programs like Specials that enhance the school experience for children.

6. Special education is mandated by federal law. How will you set up structures to ensure ongoing concerns of families engaged with special education are addressed? What do you believe are the biggest issues facing families and children with special needs, and how will you work to see their needs are met?

From my discussions with parents that have children with special needs, I understand that the biggest issue facing these families and children is D97’s reactive, rather than proactive, approach to providing students with services and support they need to succeed. 

I’ve spoken with several parents of children with special needs and they feel like they’ve had to invest time and resources to become experts on the IEP process in order to advocate for their kids, to know what to ask for, and to get more resource minutes and supports put in place for them. These parents spoke of having to set up advocates and hire attorneys in order to receive services that their children are legally entitled to. They feel that the district should do more to eliminate hurdles and obstacles that can delay receiving services by months or even a full year. D97 must do better for these students and these families.

Providing services is expensive, but D97 should be more proactive about intervention and making an investment in earlier grades to set students up for success, which would save money down the line. D97 should explore whether supports can be provided earlier in the process to better help these kids. And D97 should continue to include IEP students in a general education setting when appropriate, expose them to challenging curriculum, and focus on improving student achievement and not just behaviors.

7. How do you define equity? Have recent discussions in the larger community informed or changed your thinking? 

Equity is providing students with what they need in order to succeed and meet their full potential. Recent events and discussions in Oak Park and across the country have led me to look inward and do self-work to identify my blind spots and implicit biases. I recently read “So You Want to Talk About Race” and listened to the “Seeing White” podcast to expand my horizons and understand how I can do better.

I fully support the focus on creating more equity in our schools. It’s unacceptable for me to think about children not feeling like they belong at their school or receiving a disproportionate amount of discipline based on their appearance; that shouldn’t be any child’s experience. I feel we must continue to focus on creating strong relationships between D97, teachers and families in order to build trust so that we can have difficult discussions about sensitive topics in order to make the school experience more equitable for all students.

Finally, as a community we must be mindful to think of equity outside of the context of race. Inequity also impacts students with special needs that cannot learn over Zoom and children that require differentiation in order to stay engaged. It’s imperative that D97 leadership focuses on providing all students with what they need in order to succeed and meet their full potential.

8. How do you plan to solicit feedback from people who may be experiencing Oak Park in a different way than you? What barriers do you believe may exist in this process?

Relationship building has always been a strength of mine because of my innate ability to create connections and find commonalities with others and I know I can help foster an accessible and trusting environment.

I’ve been intentional about seeking out parents from different backgrounds, whose children experience D97 schools differently, to develop an understanding of their visions of how D97 can better serve their students. I’ve also reached out to members of the community who feel differently about D97 than I do, in order to better understand their perspectives and to reinforce that agreement isn’t required for respectful discussion. Nobody’s position is wrong about what’s best for their children - everyone’s opinion is true and valid for them and I sincerely respect that.

As a board member, I would create connections with people and organizations that are from different backgrounds and different parts of Oak Park. I would demonstrate that I am open and available to serve as an advocate for their positions and to make their voices heard. I feel that many parents have checked out because they haven’t felt like they’re a part of the process with D97; I would work to re engage these families.

On a school level, D97 should assign one board member to act as a liaison to each school so that there is an established channel of communication for families, teachers and administrators that want to elevate successes or areas of concern. It would also provide an opportunity for D97 leadership to understand the culture at a school that their children don’t attend so that they can understand the impact of policies and what is needed to help children succeed.

9. How should the District assess its policies and progress with respect to the opportunity gap? As a Board Member, how will you determine whether the District is succeeding?

D97 must continue to focus on narrowing the opportunity gap for all students. This should be an urgent priority because there are struggling students behind the statistics; we must do everything possible to make sure they don’t fall farther behind. D97 should collaborate with teachers on the front lines to create innovative, actionable solutions that can be implemented immediately. The opportunity gap doesn’t only impact students, it affects our schools’ ratings, and families may not seek out Oak Park as a place to settle down.

As I mentioned earlier, D97 has made structural changes like standardizing curriculum and assessments and bringing in more rigorous curriculum, as well as cultural changes, such as the implementation of initiatives to improve a student’s sense of belonging. Now that this scaffolding is in place D97 must focus on student growth so that we can meet the goal of “every D97 student is a confident and persistent achiever.” According to the February 2020 Mid-Year Progress Report the percent of Tier 2 and 3 students who achieved accelerated growth of at least 1.5 years (per year) in reading increased from 24% for Spring 2019 to 42% for Winter 2020. For the same measurement over the same time frames, math increased from 16% to 37%. These are major achievements, but the impact of the pandemic on academic growth must be objectively measured and addressed without delay. The sooner we face the reality of learning loss and academic regression we can put strategic plans in place to get students back on track and to continue to narrow the opportunity gap.

10. District 97 has taken some steps to move away from policing and surveillance in schools toward restorative justice, mental health supports, and other services in schools. Do you feel these moves have been successful? Why or why not? What work do you believe remains to be done in this area?

Due to the pandemic and remote learning, middle school students haven’t had much time in the school building, so it would be difficult to measure the true impact of removing School Resource Officers for this school year. 

When the SRO role is framed as an armed, uniformed police, that seems like an inappropriate presence for young teenagers, and I can understand why that would be threatening and intimidating for students and families. But I also understand that middle school personnel have indicated that the SRO role was less focused on discipline and more focused on social work and counseling, so I think that adds value for our students and should be explored further with clear roles, responsibilities and desired outcomes.

11. District 97 Board members share responsibility for oversight of the Collaboration for Early Childhood. Do you support this example of intergovernmental cooperation? Are there other types of intergovernmental cooperation that you would support?

As someone with a team-building mindset I absolutely support intergovernmental cooperation. Kindergarten readiness is critical for students to have a successful introduction to school so this relationship with the Collaboration for Early Childhood, whose vision is that all students should arrive at kindergarten safe, healthy, ready to succeed and eager to learn makes sense.

D97 provided much-needed support by working with community partners like Hephzibah, the Park District, Collaboration for Early Childhood and the Oak Park Education Foundation to support the child care needs of families and staff. D97 has also worked closely with the Department of Public Health for information on how to safely return students to the classroom and to provide vaccination access for our teachers. 

I feel that D97 should explore and leverage resources within the village to create outside-the-box solutions to support the return to school initiative, such as using adjacent Park District or Library facilities to accommodate the amount of students that want to return.

12. Educational and business leaders have begun to use a "cradle-to-career" framework when talking about education. Please discuss the role of District 97 within the “cradle-to-career” framework.

Strive Together is a national organization that provides a framework to map the success of kids from cradle to career. Intentional steps are taken to prepare kids, starting from birth through early adulthood, for success in education, work and life in general. In Oak Park, community partners developed our local initiative, Success of All Youth (SAY), to ensure that children in our community are supported during their developmental years so they can reach their full potential.

D97 plays an obvious and significant role in this endeavor because children in Oak Park will spend 9 years in D97 schools, and their school experience has an impact on SAY’s three areas of focus. Many of SAY’s goals are directly tied to a child’s school experience and school performance, such as developing a strong sense of belonging in schools, demonstrating kindergarten readiness, demonstrating competency in 3rd grade reading skills and 8th grade math skills, and demonstrating readiness for post-secondary and career options. D97 and SAY should work together to help prepare our students and set them up for success.

13. What lessons learned from the implementation of remote and hybrid learning during the pandemic do you believe will be applicable going forward, even after the pandemic abates?

The pandemic provided clarity to what I already knew about my kids’ teachers - they are dynamic, resourceful, hard-working and care deeply for their students. But it also opened my eyes to the opportunity for teachers to feel more included in decisions that impact their classrooms as well as the need to develop more trust and respect between teachers and D97. I feel that it’s critical for D97 leadership to be intentional about removing silos and empowering teachers to provide greater access and to improve communication and transparency to create more positive outcomes for students.

Technology has served as an academic lifeline for students during the pandemic. Technology can’t replicate the classroom experience but we can leverage technology to stay connected and develop a stronger sense of community. D97 should continue to use technology to deliver support students need, such as tutoring to students that aren’t meeting standards or providing differentiation to students that need extra challenge work, and to create a stronger sense of community across the district, such as creating “sister” classrooms or a virtual pen pal program. 

Way more parents are paying way closer attention to school matters because of the pandemic. D97 leadership should continue to function as if everyone is watching, whether future school board meetings have a record number of attendees or revert to pre-pandemic levels. This mentality will help D97 leadership to continue hold itself accountable. 

14. Do you see a role for the Board in ensuring that the climate at District 97 schools is welcoming to students in minority populations, whether racial, religious identity, LGBTQ, etc.? What specific actions or policies would you propose?

One of the board’s fundamental duties is to connect with the community and to serve as an advocate, so I absolutely feel that the board has a role in ensuring the climate at D97 schools is welcoming to all students. Further, one of the four universal goals for D97 is “every Oak Park D97 student is a known, nurtured and celebrated learner,” and the action plan related to that goal is to increase the percentage of students that responded favorably that when they are at school they feel like they belong. I know that “Mustang Stable Groups” at my kids’ school has created a greater sense of community among students in general and similar initiatives should be shared across D97 schools.

Each school’s culture is different, and what works at one school might not present the same results at another. Schools should have some autonomy over creating solutions within their school, and every challenge might not require an official district policy. When consistency across schools is needed, D97 leadership should be intentional about including stakeholders early in the decision-making process to ensure that any district-wide policies address root causes rather than symptoms. It’s critical that the board fosters open communication with different groups in order to develop a true understanding of actual needs. As a school community, it’s important to celebrate differences to make sure everyone feels welcome but remember to also focus on all that we have in common as members of this amazing village.

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[The above answers were supplied on 2/19/21.]