My Journey to Board of Education

About

I spent most of my childhood in Michigan, moving to Gaithersburg, Maryland in 2004 to serve with AmeriCorps. While the placement was only for a year, in 2005 I moved to Frederick and gradually fell in love with the area and all it has to offer. Frederick County is now without a doubt the place I consider “home.”

I graduated from Kalamazoo College with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish. My professional journey began working in an AmeriCorps position with The Choice Program of UMBC working with young people caught up in the juvenile justice and social services systems. Helping them and their families to navigate complex intersecting systems, including building their capacity to advocate for their own educational needs helped shape my desire to partner with school districts. Following eleven years with The Choice Program, I took a position as the Chief Operating Officer with the Job Opportunities Task Force (JOTF), a small nonprofit based in Baltimore. With JOTF, I worked to advocate for policy changes to ensure increased job and education access were possible for all Marylanders, particularly those who were returning citizens or working low-wage jobs. During this time, I joined a workgroup that was focused on advocating for the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future – which I fully support and am excited to see implemented starting this year.

I am currently working as the Program Director for the Center for Supportive Schools in Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, DC. I collaborate with schools and school districts to help build school environments that are safe, supportive, engaging, and inspiring places where all students build leadership skills, learn, and grow. I provide training and coaching to an amazing cohort of educators who continue to navigate the complexities of teaching in a pandemic. Over the past three years in this position, I sat in classrooms – both virtual and in-person – with teachers committed to meeting the diverse needs of their students. They inspire me each day to show up and push for a public education system that meets the diverse needs of Frederick County students, parents, business leaders, educators, and residents.

In my free time, I serve on the Board of Directors for Girls on the Run of Western Maryland and on the Western Maryland Advisory Council to the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights.

More important than my work and volunteer experience is my family. My spouse is a teacher in Frederick County Public Schools, where he spends his time in the classroom and coaching. We are the proud parents of two kind, generous, and spunky daughters in 1st and 3rd grade within FCPS. We enjoy spending time as a family discovering the many gems that Frederick County offers – from the amazing selection of locally owned restaurants to the beautiful farms for picking sunflowers and pumpkins to strolling Carroll Creek and shivering through Fire and Ice each year.

My family is the heart of all I do and I would be proud to serve on the Board of Education to ensure that my children, our children, and all children in our county receive the best education that we can possibly provide.

My Commitment

When elected, my approach will embrace collaboration, compassion, empathy, understanding, and a strong sense of teamwork. I believe that we owe the educators and staff who work for FCPS multiple opportunities for genuine input and feedback on their workplace. Over the course of the past several years, FCPS collected staff input and then discarded that feedback when it was too challenging – or too expensive – to implement suggestions and solutions. As a Board member, I will remain committed to valuing the experiences of educators who underwent years of education, professional training, and classroom experiences as the voice of experts in my decision-making process. Educators and staff are on the frontlines and are well-positioned to provide valuable feedback on programming, curriculum, challenges, and solutions in today’s schools. In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, FCPS remained afloat through the efforts of educators and staff who maintained their commitment to students and community – even when it put their own health at risk.

Despite the set of priorities and principles that are guiding my campaign, as a Board of Education member, I am prepared to problem-solve challenging issues as they arise. While some candidates are focused on single issues or priorities, I am well-aware that being a Board member requires constant pulse-checks on the direction of our system. When a crisis or unexpected challenge arises, our students, educators, and communities deserve a Board that is not only responsive to these needs, but willing to engage in tough conversations and make decisions. Board members are obligated to hold the FCPS superintendent and staff accountable in meeting the district’s priorities, building a strong and sustainable budget, ensuring negotiations with employee associations are timely, productive, and attract/retain a diverse, capable workforce, and responding to the immediate needs of students and staff.