In your opinion, what is the role of the MNPS Board of Education?
The number one job of the school board is to both support and hold accountable the director of schools toward the goal of providing every student a high-quality education. This means working with the director to set clear goals for student outcomes, determine strategies to achieve those goals, and regularly assess metrics for measuring success. The board is accountable to the voters, educators, students, families, and taxpayers for proposing and allocating funding to achieve those goals and reporting back transparently on decision-making and progress.
What do you think is the district's biggest achievement in the last five years?
Over the last few years, MNPS has taken a comprehensive approach to transforming our elementary schools. First, the district has prioritized ensuring that elementary schools include students through fifth grade. This is critical for student social development, academic progression, and elementary school cohesion for both students and families. Second, the district has adopted high-quality instructional materials in both ELA and math in K-5, which are proven strategies for improving student achievement. Lastly, the district has invested in advocacy centers and other supports to improve student social and emotional well-being and mental health.
I am encouraged by these investments and eager to see the impact on student outcomes.
If you are elected to serve on the Board of Education, what are the biggest challenges you expect to face?
Our biggest challenge in MNPS is improving academic achievement for all students. Far too many MNPS students are not on grade level in reading or math – especially in early grades literacy and middle and high school math. Though this was the case before the pandemic, school disruptions have only set students further back. Improving academic achievement in early literacy, middle grades math, and college and career readiness is our top priority every day. We are also facing major funding and enrollment challenges that will require us to rethink how we maximize the impact of existing and future funding. We must address gaps in state funding and enrollment impacts on local funding in order to see sustainable improvements across our schools. Finally, we must agree as a city that the education of our future generations is our top priority and create a clear path to growth and improvement in MNPS for our city to truly thrive. Creating a clear long-term improvement plan agreed upon across elected officials, business leaders, educators, and families is imperative for a sustainable future for Nashville.
If you are elected to serve on the Board of Education, what education inequities will you focus on eliminating during your time on the Board?
To eliminate inequity in academic achievement - in particular gaps in literacy and math - across MNPS schools we must ensure that every neighborhood has a great public school that both challenges students academically and provides a community that supports their social and emotional growth. The board must outline a clear set of academic goals for schools and then empower the director, her team, and school leaders to focus on achieving those goals by addressing the individual needs of individual schools, fully funding student-based budgeting, increasing pay and supports for educators and staff, and ensuring high-quality school leadership in every school. In addition, MNPS has an obligation to ensure equitable access to advanced academic programs. We can do this by providing access to advanced academics in every zoned school and ensuring that the district’s qualification policies for advanced academics, including academic magnet schools, result in students in our advanced courses that reflect the population of the school system as a whole.
How will you balance the needs and desires of your School Board district with the best interests of all MNPS students?
I believe we need to have board members – which I would be – that bring people together, listen deeply, respect differences of opinion, and work together both internally and externally to find solutions. I’ve spent more than 20 years in education doing just that and I’m eager to bring those skills to representing District 8 and MNPS. Ideally, the needs of District 8 and all MNPS students are aligned. I believe it is the job of the board member to represent the interests of their district first by making clear what their constituents want and need on critical issues. At the same time, the board's decisions will need to represent the needs of all MNPS students. Most importantly, the job of the board member is to make sure that both their district constituents and all stakeholders understand why a particular decision is made. On the board, I will lead by example, being available for my constituents, listening to their needs and the needs of my fellow board members, working toward consensus, and always focusing on civil discourse.
As a School Board member, from whom will you seek advice and input when weighing key decisions?
As the School Board member for District 8, I pledge to listen, learn, and act. First and foremost, I’m a mom who loves to talk to parents and educators about what kids are experiencing in school. I’m also a determined problem solver who deeply understands state and local education systems. So, when I’m talking to parents or educators, I’m empathizing as a mom, but my policy brain is churning, trying to figure out what the underlying problem is and how we can solve it. I will seek advice from my constituents and available data when weighing key decisions. I will attend District 8 schools’ PTO meetings quarterly, hold monthly office hours for all constituents to attend, meet regularly with District 8 teachers, and be in schools as frequently as possible. I will also use my extensive background in education policy and research to seek expert advice and use data, research, and evidence to guide my decisions.
