As an educator, I have mainly worked in Title 1 schools throughout DPS.

I have been successful in teaching students about teamwork, cooperation, communication. and critical thinking through cooperative based learning. I have facilitated many field trips for students that help them learn about their communities and gain new experiences. Some examples of this include working with Bicycle Colorado, the First T golf program, SOS outreach, Soccer for Success (Rapids youth program), The Colorado Rockies, and Denver Nuggets.

I have also coached several sports, helping youth understand the importance of hard work and dedication through athletics.

I believe in helping parents and families engage in their children's educational experiences. To facilitate this, I have organized many community events, such as field days, BBQ outings, and sport related events like Rockies and Nuggets games. Most recently, I have worked with Denver Parks and Recreation to facilitate an Urban outreach program to welcome back students and families at my current school.

Utilizing Community

We have a wonderful community here in Bailey. The Platte Canyon school district is a neighborhood school district, and in Colorado, those types of schools are hard to come by since Colorado is an open school system.

I want to help ensure that our community is not only heard, but utilized to help teach our kids.

I have been very successful in finding Colorado/Denver based programs that help give students new opportunities.

I want to give our students more opportunity to work with our small business owners. Through doing so, students can learn about entrepreneurship, budgets, State policy regarding business, and learn how to help their communities through volunteer work.

Growing our community is important. When parents, business owners, and neighbors are involved in our educational system, our students come out on Top.

Improving Educator Recruitment

Our community is changing.

With the current Colorado market, more and more people are moving out of the city and into the mountains. Bailey is part of that change.

But with change comes struggle. Our housing market is skyrocketing, causing the average home in our neighborhood to be worth roughly $500K.

This creates a problem for our school district because the employee salaries do not reflect this drastic change. Inflation has caused people that live in our community to search for jobs elsewhere, or move out of Bailey so they can continue to work here.

The majority of Platte Canyon educators have worked in our schools for many years, and there are more educators on the downhill of their careers than on the uphill. Meaning, in the next few years, you will be seeing more and more teachers retiring out of Platte Canyon.

With a country wide teacher shortage, we need to make Platte Canyon competitive to recruit teachers. By competitive I mean with salary and benefits.

Compared to other school districts around Denver, such as DPS, Jeffco, Cherry Creek, Mapleton, Littleton, etc, Platte Canyon has some of the lowest salaries offered for teachers and support staff. (This information is public, please view salary setting worksheets on district websites)

If I were elected on the school board I would work with our board of education, as well as the Front Range teacher's Union, to find ways to increase funding to our school district, and help Platte Canyon offer more competitive salaries and benefits.

Improving Student Recruitment

With Colorado being an open school system, families have the option to take their students to any school district in the state.

Every year, Platte Canyon loses roughly 20% of potential students to our neighbor, Jeffco Public Schools. We also have a large community of Bailey residents that choose to home school instead of sending their children to our wonderful public school system. Another disadvantage is our large charter school community. These "for profit" educational institutions take students away from Platte Canyon, and in turn, lowers our district funds received by the state.

With improved student recruitment comes more funding from the state resources.

As a board of education member, I would work with my fellow board members to help increase student recruitment.

We have great schools here in Platte Canyon, there is no reason why we should be losing children to Jeffco, or any other school district.

Here you will find the Video of my interview with the Board of Education on 9/13/21.

I am the first candidate to interview in this video. The interview is about 15 minutes and covers a total of 6 questions regarding the school district.