AURORA VOTE 2023: Cherry Creek school board

● What makes you the top candidate for school board? 

My studies and work in engineering, naval aviation, and law has provided me with extensive schooling and a wealth of real-world experience tackling difficult problems collaboratively and successfully. I am also a passionate advocate for children who understands that education is their most proven pathway to success. This is especially true for the children that are most at-risk and thus most in need of a quality education focused on academics.

● What is the priority the school district faces, and how would you address it? 

The Cherry Creek School District is leaving far too many children behind. This is not the fault of our teachers, staff, students, or parents–who have been true heroes over the last three years–but rather of the district’s leadership, which fails to educate half its students to grade level proficiency in English language arts and fails 60% in math. This is unacceptable and harmful to over 26,500 of the over 53,000 children who go through our schools. The priority of those schools must be to provide students with the education they need to lead productive lives and achieve their dreams and goals, whatever they may be. As a school district that is no longer even amongst the top ten in Colorado, this failure must be addressed through a return of focus to basic academic competency, and indeed excellence.

This is not an impossible dream. In 2014, our students met or exceeded expectations in math and English in the mid to high 70% percent range. We can return to or surpass those numbers by allowing teachers to do what they trained for and want to do, teach the children—without district mandates to elevate confused children questioning their gender or sexuality, while often hiding these issues from parents, or insisting that our teachers and students view everything through the prism of race.

● How should the school district deal with bullying and discrimination? 

Bullying and discrimination cannot be tolerated in our schools, in any form. School discipline in general is lacking, as is respect for both teachers and students. Our school board and superintendent are focused on equity in discipline, but equity simply means fairness. Is it fair that a disruptive student is disciplined disproportionally because of their race? The student’s conduct is what matters. We cannot allow bullying or discrimination against anyone and must firmly and fairly intervene; if we do not, disruption, disrespect, and even violence will continue in our classrooms, hallways, and playgrounds.

● Community members have been complaining about the school district not live-streaming board meetings. What steps, if any, will you take to meet the community’s demands? 

I think Scott Graves and I may have already succeeded in that regard. By bringing to light this obviously non-inclusive, non-transparent action by the current board at recent candidate forums and in our campaign literature we got Director Angela Garland to reverse course on this important issue at the September 27^th forum held at Cherry Creek High School, where she stated: “yes, I would support live streaming if reelected,” and then, “I do support the live streaming of our board meetings.” Now we just need to get Director Egan and President Kelly Bates to agree as well. Or, better yet, elect Scott and me so that we can increase transparency and inclusiveness in other areas as well.

● What book should everyone read before they graduate high school? 

Ideally, all students should read hundreds of books before graduating high school, both those required by their teachers or parents and those they feel speak to them personally. I cannot pick one book for all students to read, and it likely would be different for different students, but in my formative years I took a lot from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-reliance” and Marcus Aurelius’ stoic masterpiece “Meditations,” as well as biographies of the men and women who risked all to form the United States of America and civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and novels by brilliant writers like Mark Twain, Upton Sinclair, George Orwell, and Harper Lee.  

● Should books be banned in schools? 

No books should be banned in schools, or otherwise, ever. Demands for ideological conformity and banning free speech are much more harmful than the messiness of spirited debate about controversial topics and ideas. But our schools must protect impressionable children and young adults from topics they are neither intellectually nor emotionally ready to deal with. That is why the books children are exposed to in schools should be age-appropriate and the schools should be transparent about what books are taught or made available to their students. And parents should be able to opt-out, or preferably opt-in, to allowing their children to access controversial books.

● What role do you think law enforcement should play in schools? 

The Cherry Creek School District has a strong relationship with law enforcement partners from four different law enforcement agencies that provide School Resource Officers (SROs) for the schools and community. As noted on the district website: “The backbone of the SRO program is ‘relationship building.’” The twenty-five SROs currently working in our high schools do an exemplary job of building those relationships with students and staff to ensure their safety. The school board should expand their coverage to protect all our students, including the most vulnerable in elementary and middle schools. 

● How do you think the district should address student learning loss from the pandemic? 

The subpar academic achievement of our students is not attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic, although lock downs and the masking of young children who were largely immune from the ravages the pandemic inflicted upon the elderly and those with comorbidities did not help. As noted above, in 2014 our students met or exceeded expectations in math and English language arts in the mid to high 70% percent range. 

Student learning loss during the pandemic should and can be addressed by returning our schools’ focus to teaching and our students’ efforts toward learning. President Biden stated in September of last year that “the pandemic is over.” Thus, it is high time we return to a rigorous academic education. 

To the extent students have fallen behind we must provide the resources to bring them back up to where they need to be academically by way of tutoring, remedial classes, summer school, and where necessary having lagging students repeat a grade. While repeating a grade will be disruptive and difficult, the impact on students who are allowed to move forward without the necessary knowledge and skills to do so successfully will likely lead those children to never recover from learning loss, whether caused by the pandemic or otherwise. Studies show that a student not reading at grade level in third grade is four times less likely to graduate.

● What’s the role of the school board in regards to the current controversy over “critical race theory”? 

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, critical race theory is “a group of concepts (such as the idea that race is a sociological rather than biological designation, and that racism pervades society and is fostered and perpetuated by the legal system) used for examining the relationship between race and the laws and legal institutions of a country and especially the United States.” I personally do to not ascribe to this “theory,” which is “a plausible or scientifically acceptable [but not necessarily accepted] general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.” 

As a school board member with a voice in curriculum, I would ensure that we teach our students the ugliness of racism, both in our country and the rest of the world’s past as well as in its current manifestations, in an age-appropriate manner. I believe teaching students that they have an inherent disadvantage or advantage because of their race, which, of course, they have no control over, is confusing and disempowering.

Having grown up in the 1960s and 70s in rural Michigan and attended college at Georgia Tech in the early 80s, I was exposed to racism, which was much more prevalent then than it is now. In my opinion, viewing everything and everyone through the prism of race works against critical race theory’s goal of eradicating racism. To quote Chief Justice Roberts in a 2007 Supreme Court ruling: “The way to stop discrimination [i.e. treating individuals differently] on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” By doing so, we can further relegate racism to the dustbin of history in which it belongs.

● What do you think should be done to close the achievement gap for students of color?

The achievement gap between white and Asian students and others cannot be denied. But I do not believe it is based solely on race. To close the gap, we must understand that non-racial factors like a stable home environment, parents and other caregivers that encourage reading and education, and socio-economic conditions often contribute to these gaps more than race. Ensuring all students are treated fairly, while providing extra resources to those that are struggling academically, is the best way to close the achievement gap among students. 

● Do mental health issues among students in the district warrant spending additional funds to address them? How much more? 

Addressing mental health issues has been a focus of the school district and board in recent years. The district employs a Director of Mental Health, an Assistant Director of Mental Health, a Social-Emotional Learning Coordinator, a Crisis Prevention and Response Coordinator, and six Mental Health Coordinators. It has also partnered with STRIDE Community Health to establish two standalone, school-based community health centers at Horizon Middle School and at the Overland High/Prairie Middle School campus. A third is planned. These facilities are said to offer students, their families, the community, and staff more comprehensive and equitable primary clinic healthcare options. Also recently opened is Traverse Academy, a first-of-its-kind district operated facility to help expand access to treatment for students struggling with serious mental health challenges, ranging from anxiety and severe depression to suicidal ideations. Traverse Academy cost the district $15 million, after being budgeted at $7 million, and will be able to serve sixty students when at full capacity.

While the failure of Colorado to offer necessary mental and other health facilities may require the district to take on this important but expensive role, I would advocate for critically evaluating the success of these efforts before putting more scarce funds behind them.