Priorities Good to great.
In May 2026 the Board unanimously approved
Strategic Plan 2030. I, along
with the rest of the Board, helped draft it. The next four years are about
implementing it, and about being
willing to say out loud whether it’s working. These are my priorities, as a
board member, for the next four years.
01 Implement Strategic Plan 2030 all the way through.
Strategic Plan 2030 is organized around
five pillars: community
engagement, student culture and behavior, student learning, educator
excellence, and resource allocation. Underneath it sits a coherence
framework. A Portrait of a Learner defines what every child should be able
to do by eighth grade. A Model Classroom describes what good instruction
consistently looks like. A Portrait of an Educator sets the professional
standard we hold ourselves to.
That’s the most academically serious document D64 has produced in years.
It’s also the kind of plan that quietly dies when a board loses focus,
turns over, or gets distracted by something louder.
What that looks like on the Board - Help the administration ruthlessly prioritize the work that will lead us to actualizing the vision outlined in the plan.
- Use the Strategic Plan Scorecard as a real accountability tool, with an honest annual report to the community rather than a meaningless column of green checkmarks.
- Continue to leverage my national educational reach to ensure we are bringing national best practices to our work.
02 Close the eighth-grade gap.
District-wide, our growth numbers are improving. However, our
eighth graders are not keeping
pace with the rest of the district.
The middle school redesign is a great foundation to start from. And we have
more work to do, especially around defining & implementing a Model
Classroom, improving instructional quality across all classrooms, and
ensuring our students graduate not only with content knowledge but enduring
skills (like communication, collaboration) that they need throughout their
life. This is the exact work I spent my career doing.
What that looks like on the Board - Ask for eighth-grade results reported separately every cycle, rather than absorbed into a district average.
- Push for the redesign to be judged on student outcomes, not on whether it was implemented on schedule.
- Leverage 20+ years of instructional expertise & connections to support the administration in refining their strategy to closing this gap.
03 Protect the district’s finances, and the community’s trust.
The community gave us $89 million and we delivered what we promised, on
time. At the same time, we were able to make full-day kindergarten free
because the district’s finances were in order. In order for
the district to continue to deliver for students and families, we need to
strengthen our financial position.
I want the Board to keep making decisions the way we’ve been making
them. Conservatively,
transparently, and assuming we’ll be asked to justify every one of them.
That’s the only way for us to maintain the community’s trust and
build a fund balance that gives us financial flexibility in the future.
What that looks like on the Board - Keep long-range financial projections in public view, not just in the annual budget cycle.
- Hold the line on the governance discipline that got us here. Set direction, support the administration, don’t manage.
- Treat the next ask of taxpayers, whenever it comes, as something that has to be earned again from scratch.
Want to discuss something here?
I’d rather chat about it now than after the election. Send me a note. I
read everything that comes in.