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1) Raise aggregate teacher compensation packages without raising taxes. This means convincing fellow board members that salaries for our instructors must be a higher priority than presently considered. 2) Establish that our professional teachers are just that -- professionals. Teachers in USD 229 successfully de-certified from the KNEA union in May 2019, a definite step in the right direction. 3) Work toward establishing a greater distinction between primary school and secondary school. We already distinguish primary teachers from secondary instructors in their state-approved licenses. I envision more looping in primary grades with excellent instructors having smaller primary classes literally teaching kindergarten through third grade. Looping is only successful with excellent teachers. Good managers, good principals, do not let lousy teachers loop. This goes back to treating our certified staff as professionals with professional pay. Teachers are not all equally good at teaching.

In addition to having registration as a Professional Engineer, I am a licensed teacher in Kansas with three endorsements on my teaching license: mathematics, physics, and earth/space science. I was privileged to serve eight years on the Kansas State Board of Education, elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2016. I have tutored math and physics in Johnson County, Kansas, for more than 25 years. Additionally, I have taught virtually every age in a variety of circumstances, from kindergarten though college, as a full-time teacher, as a substitute, and as adjunct faculty in post-secondary institutions. I taught for a year on an Indian reservation, at the Kickapoo Nation School in Powhattan, Kansas. I have taught in public, private, and parochial institutions. I have mentored hundreds of homeschooled children. I have done a wide variety of things, from radio to truck driving, all preparing me for my life's work: giving public schools an upgrade to better serve all who desire an education.

Maintaining fiscal responsibility on behalf of taxpayers must continue to be in our domain on the local school board. We have the duty to put students and families ahead of "the system." Local school boards are political, elected in non-partisan races. Better boards rise above partisanship; they avoid the blue-team versus red-team divisions that plague so many of our political institutions these days. It is more than a slogan to "put students and families first, ahead of the system." Better compensation packages for teachers is, indeed, putting students first. We will adhere to this basic principle: good teachers should make good money; very good teachers should earn very good salaries; excellent teachers should receive excellent pay.