Why I'm Running as a Write In Candidate

I thought I should take the time to explain why I'm running as a write in candidate.

I was giving serious consideration to running for the Johnston School Board this year. During my contemplation, the nomination period lapsed and I wasn’t able to file nomination papers. Due to this, I am now writing you asking that you give serious consideration for voting for me on September 8th as a “write-in” vote for the Johnston School Board. As a lifelong Johnston School District citizen, I feel I can bring an energy and passion to a school district that I so greatly love.

Why I'm Running for Johnston School Board

1) I’m energetic and passionate about the Johnston school district. I think this is obvious as I have lived my entire life within the school district limits, have positioned my family to attend the school district, and have coached high school soccer within the school district. I’m entrenched in the school district and plan on being so for many, many years to come.

2) My oldest daughter will be entering the school district in one year. I want to make sure that our school district is making the necessary investments to not only provide her with the best education possible, but to provide all students with the best education possible. I feel these investments, whether monetary, time, etc. need to be made in several areas:

• Facilities – We need to provide our students with first class facilities that will maximize technology, in order to enhance the learning experience for them. Our students need an environment conducive to learning, and they need to be able to have access to the technology needed to maximize their learning potential.
• Educators – We need to provide our students with first class educators: knowledgeable, certified, passionate, and sincere teachers that will focus all their efforts into developing not only the young minds of our students, but also the character and discipline of our students. We need educators that will take a vested interest into every young person’s development. These educators will quite possibly spend more waking hours with our kids than we do as parents. For this reason, it’s imperative that we view our teachers as having an important role in the development of our children. They are the ones that will help us raise our children, by giving them knowledge, empowering their minds, honing their social skills, and developing their character. For the reasons listed above, we need to compensate our educators accordingly. We need to make it a priority to attract and retain the best educators in the state, by not only being competitive in teacher salaries, but by being the market leader. We also need to continue to be critical in our hiring practices to continue to ensure the best teachers available are hired to help develop our students. We need to continually review and critique our curriculum. We need to ensure that our curriculum covers a wide array of subjects and ideas, to help ensure that we are preparing our students for life after “Johnston,” whether that be higher education or the workforce.
• Extra-Curriculars – We need to make sure our students have more than enough opportunities to get involved in things outside of the normal school day. Involvement in activities (whether sports, drama, music, mock trial, social clubs, etc) helps develop our young people socially, emotionally, and physically
• Faculty, Staff, and Support Staff – We need to ensure that we are taking care of those responsible for creating our leaders of the future, by reviewing and discussing salaries, benefits, and work-life balance, to ensure that they are inline with our mission. Our schools could not be where they are at now, or where they are going to go in the future, without these people pushing us in the right direction.

3) The School Board needs to be an efficient and well functioning team, ensuring policies are set to protect our students, staff, parents, and community. Efficient and well functioning teams respect each other by not pushing personal agendas. Efficient and well functioning teams are able to actively listen to each other, and openly and intensely debate with each other, sticking to the issues at hand and staying away from personal attacks. Efficient and well functioning teams do not merely compromise on issues, but rather respectively deliberate until a consensus is reached. I will help be a catalyst for effective teamwork for the Board.

4) The political process should be one of choice. That is, the community should have their voice in determining who is elected to the school board. I do not feel that it’s due process to have three candidates running unopposed for three seats. No one should be guaranteed a seat because they happen to be the only one running. We need to make sure that the community can have a say into who is elected to the Johnston Community School Board.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share my "platform" with you. Please let me know if I can answer any further questions.