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Slogan
Speak Up for Our Schools
Involvement in Community
I've lived in this district for nearly 10 years and am an active parishioner of the Church of St. Ann in Hampton. I attended the recent school board meeting where our new screen time policy passed, and I'm committed to staying engaged with the decisions shaping our schools and community. Beyond my local involvement, I co-founded Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro), where I helped secure its 501(c)3 status and served as Treasurer on its Board of Directors. I later co-founded Professional Filipino American Youth (PFAY), also securing its 501(c)3 status, and served first as Operations Director and then as Development and Fundraising Director — helping build spaces for young AAPI professionals to grow, connect, and find mentorship.
I'm running because I'm a mother whose daughter will start Kindergarten in this district in Fall 2027, and I want to make sure the decisions shaping her education, and every child's, are made with real accountability to the families who fund and depend on our schools. I've lived in this district for nearly 10 years and have watched it grow. I want to help guide that growth responsibly.
Professionally, I'm a CPA and Certified Internal Auditor with an MBA and over 15 years of experience in compliance, internal audit, and finance. I know how to read a budget critically and hold an organization accountable to the people it serves. My work in ethics and compliance has also given me experience navigating sensitive investigations, including HR-related matters, with discretion and fairness.
Beyond my career, I've spent years co-founding and leading nonprofit organizations — including securing 501(c)3 status for two of them — which has given me hands-on experience in governance, consensus-building, and mentoring young people navigating their own paths. I bring a rare combination of financial discipline and genuine, people-first leadership to this role.
I'm proud of the direction our district has already taken with the new screen time limit, the bell-to-bell cellphone ban, and the renewed focus on handwriting. I want to build on that momentum.
In many ways, I think we need to return to a model closer to the computer labs of the 1990s and 2000s. Have technology available for specific instruction, research, and skill-building, rather than a device in every student's hands throughout the day.
This should be a priority because the way students engage with technology directly shapes their ability to focus, retain information, and develop foundational skills, and getting that balance right sets the foundation for everything else we want to achieve academically.
As a CPA and Certified Internal Auditor, I'd start by conducting a thorough review of administrative and operational spending like vendor contracts, facilities costs, and overhead, to identify inefficiencies before ever considering cuts that touch the classroom.
Healthcare costs are one of the biggest pressures on school budgets, and I'd look closely at opportunities there. That could include exploring a health insurance consortium or cooperative purchasing arrangement with neighboring districts to gain better rates through shared bargaining power.
I'd also want to take a close look at our plan design more broadly, to make sure coverage decisions are cost-effective and medically appropriate, which could help control rising premiums without touching benefits tied to staff and family health needs.
My goal would always be to protect instructional quality, mandated programs, and staff compensation first, and look for savings in the areas that don't directly serve students.
I didn't grow up with social media. It didn't exist. I can't imagine facing that kind of 24/7 scrutiny as a kid, on top of everything else school brings. And the harm doesn't stay within school hours, online bullying and social pressure follow students home.
That's why I support the policies our district has already put in place, the two-hour screen time limit, the bell-to-bell cellphone ban, and the renewed focus on handwriting. Reducing constant device presence helps refocus classrooms on what matters most: educating our children.
On misinformation, I'd support teaching students to critically evaluate what they see online, especially as AI makes it harder to tell what's real. Students need practical skills to question sources and verify claims, not just absorb information passively.
I'd also want counselors and staff equipped with real resources to support students dealing with online bullying and social comparison, so they have somewhere to turn even when the harm happens outside school hours.
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Slogan
Putting Kids First
Involvement in Community
Poll worker
As a parent with children at Woodglen and Valley View, I am invested in the continued success of our school district. It's important to me that our schools remain welcoming places that meet students where they are and help them reach their full potential.
Both of my parents were public school teachers, and education was always a priority in our home. My undergraduate degree is in the arts and I later got a PhD in biology. After a few years of teaching and research at the college level, ten years ago I transitioned into a communications and strategy position in the pharmaceutical industry. I've since earned an MBA to better understand the business aspects of my work.
All of these roles have required collaboration, problem-solving, decision-making, long term thinking, good judgement, and accountability. I believe that these skills will make me an effective member of our school board.
I think the major challenge facing schools today is preparing students for the incredible amount of information available at their fingertips. How do they know what is objectively true? How do they evaluate the output of AI, or Google search results? Our schools need to help them build the muscle of problem-solving instead of just asking a computer and "outsourcing" their effort and thinking.
Writing is an act of structured thinking, and successive drafts help students improve and clarify their thoughts. Working though math questions builds problem-solving skills. Our primary focus should be on helping students learn the critical thinking skills they'll need to navigate this rapidly changing world.
Our district has taken an important first step on this topic with its new technology use policy, and I foresee needing to regularly revisit this issue in the coming years as technology and access to information continue to advance.
The school budget is the biggest share of our property taxes, and our taxes are... not low. That said, our two school buildings have seen quite a few graduating classes, and they need continuous maintenance and occasional expensive capital improvement projects to remain in good order. The cost of everything continues to rise, and schools feel that crunch just like the rest of us.
The school board does need to prioritize. I have seen the current board get multiple bids for projects, negotiate them down, and apply for grants to supplement the budget. These are all good strategies.
After issues that impact health and safety of the students, a major priority should be retaining high-quality teachers and staff, as turnover can be a major expense that also negatively impacts student experiences.
In-person connection helps build the social skills and self-confidence students need to thrive. The state's new "bell-to-bell" ban on phone use during the school day may help, but our schools play an important role in creating such opportunities through sports, clubs, music programs, and more. Our district's social-emotional learning (SEL) program also does a great job creating a common language for the whole school community to use.
Preparing students to identify dis- and misinformation is especially important in the middle school grades, when they begin to more independently and frequently use technology. These risks cross disciplines; kids need to be able to decipher what's true in news, politics, health, YouTube videos, and more. Although the middle school librarian position has been eliminated and students only have dedicated instruction in this topic in grades 6 & 7, I believe all the middle school grades deserve dedicated curriculum, staff, and time to build and exercise information literacy skills.
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