Montana school board trustees are locally elected to provide governance and ensure each school district provides a supportive environment in which students have opportunities to achieve their individual and collective learning needs. Trustees provide community leadership and serve as advocates for children, the school district, and public schools.
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I have served on the board for two terms and would like to continue to represent the citizens of Belgrade. My wife and I are both 4th generation Montanans and graduates of MSU. Our sons have attended Belgrade since Kindergarten. I have a vested interest in assuring our schools are in line with our Montana community values and actually understand what that means.
I am generally a fiscally conservative that cares about our kids and communities and my voting record on the board reflects that.
We have made many positive changes to our district the past 6 years on the board. I would like the opportunity to continue to volunteer my time and energy to helping our schools graduate students that become productive members of society.
My 6 years on the board have exposed me to most aspects of school operations. I have focused on finance and negotiations, which are central to keeping schools operational and successful.
I was Operations Manager at MSU for 5 years. All of that experience from the processes of O&M of buildings and grounds to understanding fund accounting translates directly. I have 25 years of experience in publicly traded companies that specialize in high tech engineering and construction. Managing diverse groups of people, contracts and budgets in excess of $30M annually, and complying with transparency rules for fortune 500 companies have been valuable in understanding the complexities of running a school.
The primary role of the board is to set the high level direction and goals of the schools and give the administrators the tools and flexibility to achieve those. As part of that charge, the board needs to regularly review the performance results and react according to those outcomes. That applies to finances, performance of each school in standardized testing, performance of our extra-curricular teams and how well we are communicating with our community. Trustees need to be transparent, communicate with the community regularly and make sure that the community values are reflected appropriately in the schools.
Managing all the issues associated with the rapid expansion of growth in the valley and the inflex of out of state people. That encompasses everything from being a competitive employer that can hire and retain staff to purchasing land and building schools to accommodate that growth with an overstressed tax base. We need to continue to tighten our belts and make sure we continue spending taxpayers dollars wisely while meeting our education goals. Transparency and communication are critical to the districts success. We have gotten considerably better at keeping people informed while I've been on the board, but we need to continue to improve. Our tax base should never be surprised when we ask for levies or bonds.
