Slogan
Reaching for Excellence
I’m a firm believer in providing students with a well-rounded education. That means strong academics, but also foreign languages, sports, the arts, clubs and programs like Model UN and robotics, as well as health and personal finance education that prepares students for life beyond the classroom.
Just as importantly, I value students’ mental health and well-being. Highland Park has a strong mental health program, and I want to continue supporting it while looking for opportunities to strengthen and grow it.
Something especially near and dear to me is making sure **all** students have what they need not just to get by, but to thrive. I support strong, evidence-based special education that considers each student’s individual needs. I also believe students should be challenged according to their abilities, including making sure students who are ready to advance further have opportunities to do so.
Finally, a four-year university should not be the only measure of success. We should provide meaningful opportunities in trades, vocational education, and other career paths. Every Highland Park graduate should leave our schools feeling prepared to take on the world, no matter what path they choose.
One area I would like us to continue improving is making sure we are meeting students where they are academically, not only supporting students who are struggling but also providing enough challenge and opportunity for students who are ready to advance further. Sometimes our highest achieving students can go under the radar because they are doing well, but they deserve an education that challenges them and helps them continue to grow too.
I would also like to see us continue expanding opportunities for students who may not be interested in a traditional four-year college path. College is not the only path to a successful future. Vocational education, trades, internships, life-skills programs, and hands-on learning can give students valuable experience while helping them discover their strengths and interests; e.g. programs like DECA provide students with hands-on experience in business, entrepreneurship, leadership, financial literacy, and career readiness.
Finally, I strongly believe we need to protect and support our fine arts programs. Music, theater, visual arts, and other creative opportunities are not “extras.” They are part of a well-rounded education. For some students, these are the places where they find their confidence, their community, and even their future career.
Ultimately, I want us to provide enough variety that every student can find opportunities to be challenged, discover what they’re good at, and leave our schools prepared for whatever path they choose.
There’s a saying that goes, “Budgets are about choices, and those choices reflect our priorities.” I think that’s especially true in education.
My priorities include special education, appropriately challenging academics, support for struggling students, and fair pay for teachers and staff. Without them, we don’t have our schools. I also believe in protecting a well-rounded education, including sports, extracurriculars, arts, music, and enrichment. These programs build confidence, connection, community, and school pride. They aren’t separate from education, they are part of it.
Maintaining safe facilities and adequate nursing and health services must also be priorities.
At the same time, we can’t always fund everything at once. I believe in a balanced, responsible budget and recognize that sometimes taxes must increase to maintain our schools. However, affordability is a real concern in NJ, and I don’t want our neighbors continually struggling with higher taxes.
I don’t think it’s responsible to name programs to cut without examining the actual budget and needs. We should first look for unnecessary, duplicated, or underused expenses, opportunities for greater efficiency, responsible use of surpluses, and ways to reallocate existing funds. If cuts are necessary, I would start with areas that have the least direct impact on students and classrooms.
My goal is to protect what our students need while also being responsible to the community that funds our schools.
There are most definitely groups of at-risk students in our community. Highland Park is one of the most diverse communities I have ever lived in. Our diversity spans race, ethnicity and culture, language, religion, sexual identity, health and disability, educational needs, citizenship status, and economic circumstances. Our students naturally come to school with different experiences, needs, and challenges.
I recognize the importance of having people and systems in place to recognize when a student is struggling, connecting families with the services they need, and helping families access community resources when something is outside the district’s scope.
What happens outside the classroom affects what happens inside it. A student who is hungry, struggling with mental health, unable to get to school consistently, or experiencing instability will have a harder time accessing their education.
That’s why I’m committed to maintaining and strengthening our mental health and special education programs, school-home liaisons, and resources for families facing barriers such as attendance, food insecurity, or other basic needs. I also value programs like G.L.O.W. (Global Learning Outside the Walls), which provides special education students with opportunities to develop life skills, prepare for future careers, participate in community-based learning, and gain real world work experience.
To me, this is all part of the well-rounded education every student deserves.
Whether or not adults want to talk about it, many of our students will eventually become sexually active. Having accurate information gives people the tools they need to make informed decisions for themselves. That’s why I advocate for robust, age-appropriate, evidence-based sex education for all students. Comprehensive sex education teaches students factual information about their bodies, healthy relationships, consent, protection from sexually transmitted infections, and prevention of unintended pregnancy. Sex has somehow become more taboo in our society than many forms of violence, and I think removing some of that stigma is important. Students should feel comfortable asking qualified adults questions (even embarrassing ones) and receiving factual, scientifically accurate answers rather than having to rely on peers or misinformation.
For some students, school-based sex education may be the only place where they have access to accurate information and a trusted adult they can ask questions. I also believe sexuality and the human body should not be treated as inherently shameful subjects.
As someone who values evidence-based science and is committed to providing students with the best education possible, I think it’s also worth remembering something very simple: sex is science. It’s biology. We should teach it accurately, appropriately, and without stigma and shame.
I unwaveringly believe in the Constitution and in the fundamental principle of human rights for everyone. Every child should be able to come to school and feel safe, regardless of their immigration status or the status of their family.
I do not believe ICE should be conducting immigration enforcement in our schools, nor do I believe a school should ever hand a child over to an adult who is not that child’s parent, legal guardian, or otherwise legally authorized to take custody of them.
During my tenure, our Board updated district policy and regulations addressing immigration enforcement and the protection of students. I support continuing to follow those protections and ensuring that the district complies with the law while safeguarding students’ rights, privacy, safety, and access to their education.
Our schools exist to educate and protect children. A child should never be afraid to come to school because of where they or their family came from.
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Slogan
Reaching for Excellence
I have spent my career in education research, studying not only whether programs and curricula are effective, but what it takes to translate them into better outcomes for students. I have brought that same perspective to my work on the Board. My priorities for another term are academic excellence for all students, strong special education and intervention, responsible use of technology and AI, expanded early learning, and fiscal responsibility.
When I joined the Board, we did not have an effective system for consistently monitoring student progress, making it harder to identify students who were falling behind. We now have stronger progress monitoring and an intervention program to respond to those needs. We have also expanded Pre-K, giving more children access to strong early learning before kindergarten, and we are beginning to see smaller readiness gaps in the data.
This year, we also approved ClearMath for K–5, along with professional development to support implementation. My focus is not simply on adopting good programs, but on making sure they work for students. I want us to know who is thriving, who is struggling, and what we need to do differently. To me, that is what academic excellence should mean: not just strong programs on paper, but a school system that sees every student and helps each one grow.
Academically, I want us to continue strengthening a coherent K–12 program, with early intervention for students who are struggling and meaningful opportunities for students ready to go further.
But a strong education also has to offer students more than one path to success. Not every student will thrive through the same sequence of traditional academic courses, and a four-year college should not be treated as the only successful outcome. I would like us to expand opportunities for dual enrollment, career and technical education, internships, work-based learning, and partnerships with vocational programs, colleges, local employers, and community organizations.
For a small district like Highland Park, partnerships can dramatically expand what we are able to offer. We should look creatively at opportunities through Rutgers, Middlesex College, county vocational programs, and other organizations so students can access richer coursework and real-world experiences without requiring the district to build every program itself.
I also strongly support protecting fine arts, music, and other programs that help students discover their interests and talents. My goal is a school system rich enough in opportunity that each student can find a path that challenges and engages them.
I believe the Board’s responsibility is to understand not only what we spend, but what those investments are producing for students. My priorities are the instructional core: excellent teachers and staff, special education, intervention and student supports, strong curriculum, mental and physical health services, early learning, and the arts and other programs that provide a well-rounded education.
Our commitment to those priorities is reflected in what we have actually done. During an exceptionally difficult budget year, we expanded both our academic intervention program and Pre-K rather than pulling back from them. Fiscal responsibility also means examining programs, contracts, and administrative expenditures for utilization and impact. We should be willing to redesign or redirect spending that is duplicative, underused, or not delivering sufficient value.
I also support multi-year planning, maximizing grants and outside funding, pursuing shared services and partnerships where appropriate, and maintaining responsible reserves. My goal is to protect investments that matter most for students while remaining mindful of the taxpayers who fund our schools.
Yes, but I think the most important question is not simply which groups we label “at risk.” It is whether we have systems capable of recognizing when an individual student is beginning to struggle and responding early enough to make a difference. Students can face barriers related to disability, academic difficulty, poverty, housing or food insecurity, mental health, language, immigration status, attendance, family circumstances, or many other factors. Students can also have needs that are missed because district-level data look strong.
One of my priorities on the Board has been improving our ability to understand student-level needs rather than relying only on aggregate measures. I want us to continue strengthening early identification, evidence-based academic intervention, special education and 504 supports, mental-health services, multilingual learner supports, and connections between families and community resources.
We also need to examine outcomes by student group. Equity cannot simply mean that a program is technically available to everyone. We need to ask who is accessing it, who is succeeding, who is not, and why. That approach is closely connected to my professional work in education research. Good systems use data to identify a problem, combine that information with the expertise of educators and families, intervene, and then determine whether the intervention actually helped. I want that cycle to become increasingly routine throughout Highland Park.
I support comprehensive health education that is age-appropriate, medically and scientifically accurate, evidence-based, inclusive, and aligned with New Jersey standards. Those standards address areas including personal and mental health, healthy relationships, consent and sexual health, with specific statutory requirements varying by age and grade level.
I would not adopt a new policy simply for the sake of having a new policy. I would first want to understand whether there is an identified problem with our current curriculum or its implementation.
What I do support is regular curriculum review. The Board should know whether what students are actually being taught is aligned with current standards, appropriate at each grade level, supported by evidence, and being implemented consistently. Families should also be able to understand what is being taught and when.
That is how I approach curriculum generally. The Board should establish expectations and provide appropriate oversight, while qualified educators and content experts make instructional decisions. If a review identified a substantive gap in our health or sex education program, I would support addressing that gap through curriculum, professional learning, or policy as appropriate.
Every child who attends our schools needs to be able to come to school and learn without fear. The district's role is to educate students, protect their privacy and safety, and make sure staff understand exactly what to do if immigration enforcement affects a student or family.
Importantly, Highland Park has already acted on this issue. While on the the Board, we adopted detailed protections requiring that staff not inquire about or record immigration status, that requests from immigration authorities for access to students, information, or school property be referred to the Superintendent and legal counsel, and that information not be shared except as required by law. The resolution also calls for staff training, family resources and support for affected students.
I supported putting those protections in place, and I believe the next responsibility is implementation. Administrators, teachers, front-office staff and others should know the appropriate procedures, families should understand their rights and the district's policies, and legal questions should be handled by district counsel rather than individual staff members being placed in the position of making legal judgments.
Our responsibility as a school district is very clear: ensure that every Highland Park student can safely access the education to which they are entitled.
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Our priorities start with better oversight of the superintendent. Too often the BoE has been a rubber stamp for the superintendent and the incumbents have failed in their job of oversight. These failures mean that parents and voters have had to organize to overturn decisions made by the superintendent; sometimes successfully, but always in frustration.
The list includes organizing to restore field-trip funding when it was cut; ill-advised privatizing of the the after-school program; losing SEPAG independence leading to the resignation of SEPAG leadership; fighting to restore funding for a nurse, librarian, interventionists, and secretaries; loss of a social studies teacher; cutting the Makerspace program; hiring a new 6-figure athletics administrator (a close associate of the superintendent) causing the athletics budget to balloon by 31%; and struggling (for years!) with the too early Bartle School start time of 7:45 am. Parents are worried about a loss of academic rigor and dwindling opportunities for students. The World Language program is down to Spanish only and AP courses are being offered less frequently.
The road to improvement starts by ensuring that parents are heard and their questions are answered. Max and I pledge to exercise oversight of the superintendent to ensure honesty and transparency. Our vision of inclusive excellence serves our diverse students in fully-staffed schools, prioritizes student health, and demands respect for community input.
Programming must be rigorous and inclusive. Our task is achieving breadth and inclusion cost-efficiently. Rigorous means challenging and interesting to K-12 students. It means opportunities for projects where students take pride in real-world projects (like W.I.S.E. in HS). Enrichment efforts of a librarian making reading fun are key (esp. in the early grades).
Vocational offerings are limited leaning heavily into technology. At low cost, we might revise the rarely-used Work Study class into a well-communicated internship and leverage our community by exploring formal partnerships with the borough, local businesses, and community organizations.
Collaboration with Rutgers and MCC demands leadership but can be cost efficient. The High School Scholars Program at MCC (https://bit.ly/4yH08bg) is excellent and the district should do more to facilitate it for students. Partnering to fund-raise for Blue Owl Scholarships that make the HSSP (and college credit!) free for all free-and-reduced lunch students is worth pursuing.
Our World Languages curriculum has shrunk. French was cut for Mandarin and now Mandarin is gone. World Languages are now Spanish only. We can explore partnerships to diversify world language opportunities.
We advocate reevaluating our relationship to technology. This goes beyond cell phone bans. We can lead in the state by adopting critical AI literacy as a goal implemented appropriately across grade levels and offer programming emphasizing human interactions
Budgets reflect our values and the school budget must support all students. This includes strong support for staff.
I will fight for schools fully-staffed by teachers, librarians, nurses, and support staff. Max and I fought to save a nurse, librarian, interventionists, and secretaries from cuts proposed by the superintendent and opposed the incumbents voting to cut a social studies teacher.
I will vote only for equitable budgets with opportunities for all students, including full support for families and students with disabilities, a broad curriculum, and fully-funded student activities including field trips (saved only after outcry from parents).
I will resist administrative bloat. The incumbents voted for a new 6-figure athletics administrator position and approved hiring a close associate of the superintendent after the position was posted for only 4 days leading to an unsustainable 31% increase in athletics spending. Such bloat endangers full-staffing of our schools and funding for special education needs. It also unwisely spends taxpayer’s dollars. The posted librarian position I joined the fight to save, was removed before the start of school and parents were informed that “for the upcoming school year” it would be shared. Once again, it took public outcry for this budgeted position to be reposted; whether it will be ultimately filled remains in doubt.
Poverty, race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, mental and physical health, language acquisition, and challenging family schedules all pose risks to our students. Our assessment of at-risk student populations also demands a particular awareness of two groups that have been made exceedingly vulnerable in our current national climate - immigrants and trans people.
The list above is further complicated. For example, we might address student disability by fully-funding our special education obligations, restoration of an independent SEPAG, and commitment to accommodations via the IEP and 504 processes, but parent or care-giver disability can also create risks. My physical disability means that if the 7:45 Bartle start time had been in place when my children attended Bartle I would have been unable to support getting them to school on time.
The number of challenges to be addressed demands data, creativity, leadership, and resources. We must involve the community in our solutions and seek the advice and involvement of both experts and members of at-risk groups. The first step besides community involvement is collection of data across the whole range of factors listed above and assessment of their impacts in our district and community. Next, we must maintain and expand existing supports. We should exercise oversight and stewardship of our before-and-after-care programs. Cooperation with the borough and community organizations is worth exploring.
Sex education has an uneven history in the district and it fell short when my children were in school. I support high-quality sex education that is age-appropriate, evidence-based, culturally appropriate, medically accurate, and achieves state standards.
We should adopt a new policy requiring regular biennial reviews of our schools adherence to the NJ State Health and Physical Education Standards (including standards for sex education). Reviews can be used to adjust how sex education is implemented.
Ideally, sex education in our schools should be provided by a dedicated sexuality educator with training in public health. If instruction falls to physical education teachers (as it did with my children), we must support them with rigorous training.
New Jersey law mandates at least 150 minutes of health education during each school week in grades 1-12 (3.75-credits of health education yearly in HS). Sex education should cover HIV, STIs, sexual orientation, gender identity, consent, healthy relationships, pregnancy outcomes, contraception, emphasize abstinence, and discuss abortion and other pregnancy options.
Programming must be age-appropriate and any sex education in the elementary schools is restricted to sex abuse prevention (a child who knows the names of their body parts, understands that they get to say who can touch them will be more likely to report inappropriate touching).
Finally, the district should communicate openly with parents about sex education programming.
Our district has passed a good and strong resolution that should guide our response to ICE and I pledge to follow that guidance. First, as stated in the resolution, the schools are not agents of law enforcement and our obligation is to educate all school-age children residing in Highland Park. The resolution commits “to equal opportunity for all school-age students residing in Highland Park to attend, and to enjoy all opportunities and benefits available in, the schools of our district, regardless of ethnicity, race, language, or immigration status, and free from harassment or intimidation, for so long as they may reside in Highland Park.” This commitment reflects my values and I believe it reflects HP Values – specifically the importance of welcoming strangers found across many faith traditions. In practice, this means maintaining the confidentiality of all students and their families and not cooperating with ICE in absence of a court order. It means resisting ICE presence on school grounds and district property. I encourage voters to review the excellent and principled resolution at: https://bit.ly/4hbhRAN.
No more rubber stamps! Our priorities start with better oversight of the superintendent. The BoE has been a rubber stamp for the superintendent and the incumbents have failed in their job of oversight. Their failures mean that parents and voters have had to organize to attempt to overturn decisions made by the superintendent.
The list includes organizing to restore field-trip funding when it was cut; losing SEPAG independence leading to the resignation of SEPAG leadership; fighting to restore funding for a nurse, librarian, interventionists, and secretaries; loss of a social studies teacher; cutting the Makerspace program; hiring a new 6-figure athletics administrator (a close associate of the superintendent) causing the athletics budget to balloon by over 30%; and struggling (for years!) with the too early Bartle School start time of 7:45 am. Parents are worried about a loss of academic rigor and dwindling opportunities for students. The World Language program is down to Spanish only and AP courses are being offered less frequently.
The road to improvement starts by ensuring that parents are heard and their questions are answered. Rob and I pledge to exercise oversight of the superintendent to ensure honesty and transparency. Our vision of inclusive excellence serves our diverse students in fully-staffed schools, prioritizes student health, and respect for community input.
As a school nurse, I see that students' ability to learn cannot be decoupled from their physical and mental well-being, so any programs that support student well-being also support academic outcomes. I agree with Rob that programming must be academically rigorous. Even more important, programs must be inclusive and ensure the happiness and well being of our students. Through our campaign survey and discussions with community members, I've heard repeatedly about student mental health, sleep, technology use, and the importance of creative expression through arts and music. The way we achieve that is to have programs that are educating the diverse set of students that we have.
Creating this kind of programming depends on having a great set of teachers and great librarians. At this time, we are discussing the unfilled vacancy of the dedicated librarian at Bartle. I think we should be asking whether reducing access to a certified library professional is consistent with our goal of rigorous academics.
As Keith Curry Lance writes, “When schools have high-quality library programs and librarians who share their expertise with the entire school community, student achievement gets a boost.”
With Rob, I will resist administrative bloat. There are costs in a school budget that we do not have much control over. That makes it even more important to scrutinize the spending we do control. We need to prioritize the staff who are directly interacting with students.
The incumbents voted for a new 6-figure athletics administrator position and approved hiring a close associate of the superintendent after the position was posted for only 4 days leading to an unsustainable 31% increase in athletics spending. Such bloat endangers full-staffing of our schools and funding for special education needs. It also unwisely spends taxpayer’s dollars. The posted librarian position I joined the fight to save, was removed before the start of school and parents were informed that “for the upcoming school year” it would be shared. Once again, it took public outcry for this budgeted position to be reposted.
I agree with Rob that poverty, disability, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, language barriers, and family circumstances can all place students at greater risk, and that each deserves our attention.
As a school nurse, I would particularly emphasize mental health. According to the SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2021–22, nearly one in five of our New Jersey adolescents ages 12–17 experienced a major depressive episode in the prior year. Our students are navigating an incredibly anxious time, and sadly, for many, their phones have become their primary way to connect and relax.
That does not mean phones are always healthy or that schools should not set reasonable boundaries. It does mean we need to understand what students experience when we remove that source of comfort and we must ensure they have other ways to regulate, connect, and seek help. We need strong nursing and counseling services and a prepared collectively supportive staff and trusted teachers who can recognize students who may be struggling and isolating.
Sex education is important and legally required and should be delivered by a diverse team including a sexual health certified educator, the instructor-certified school nurse, a strong Teen Pep program, and close connection with the local health department and sexual health services.
Rob and I agree that we should adopt a new policy requiring regular biennial reviews of our schools adherence to the NJ State Health and Physical Education Standards (including standards for sex education). Reviews will allow us to improve how sex education is implemented.
I was fortunate that I benefited from a sex education curriculum that did not fall only to the physical education teachers. I graduated from Highland Park High School with the education from a dedicated sex educator with training in public health and the benefits of the Teen Pep program. I know a strong sex education program will support student mental and physical health more broadly.
My commitment to educating all children means all children regardless of their immigration status, health status, or disability. As a school nurse, I understand the importance of protecting the confidentiality and privacy of the students and families we serve. I believe the district should have clear procedures for responding to ICE that protect student health and privacy first. We can ensure that requests for information are handled by the appropriate administrators and legal counsel.
I would advocate for every school to conduct a roundtable simulation exercise with all staff that includes teachers, nurses, administrators, secretaries, custodians, and other school personnel so everyone knows exactly what to do if ICE arrives on school property. These exercises should include borough and district counsel and address how to respond, who to contact, and how to protect students and their families. Such planning will ensure that the excellent district resolution concerning ICE is maximally supported.
