What I Stand For:
BUILDING COMMUNITY: I would like to create a school-parent alliance to hopefully ease pressure on educators. I would love to see a cohesive district, with few differences from school to school. Pearland has an amazing resource in our parents and greater community. I would endeavor to see us harness those more efficiently to maximize services to our kids equally across the district, without further taxing PISD’s limited financial resources. Some of our schools have more active PTAs and parent volunteers, some have less, leading to inequities in the services available to children. With a district-wide volunteer force, we could more easily serve the entire community.
CELEBRATING DIVERSITY: I would like the district to provide support to our educators in their endeavors to address the countless new challenges facing kids today. While it has not traditionally been the role of the school to address mental and emotional health of children, this is where we are today. Support and prevention are essential in the school environment, yet it is not fair to expect teachers to take on that additional burden, which is often beyond their training, and certainly not a responsibility commensurate with their salaries. PISD has made a tremendous effort in this capacity, reaching out to local volunteer resources. I’d like to expand on that by truly being a “district of innovation,” exploring grants and free programs that might be available.
EVOLVING CONSTANTLY: I would like to see PISD be proactive in addressing conflicts that arise out of our “growing pains.” I feel that much of the negative publicity and taxpayer-funded lawsuits could possibly be avoided with a different approach to incidences. Comprehensive diversity training and top-down enforcement, plus direct communication with parents would go a long way. I’m very proud of this district, and I hate to see us negatively portrayed outside of Pearland. This community is full of loving, generous people, and many of our missteps have not been borne out of malice, but rather lack of information. Rather than retreating to our corners when we have differences, effective communication can often build good will.
Building community
Celebrating diversity
Evolving constantly