I am motivated by one core belief: every decision should put students first. My top priorities are safe schools, stronger parental involvement, improved academic focus, and responsible spending. As a parent with three sons in our schools, a husband of a teacher, a retired State Trooper, and a security professional, I bring real-world experience to address school safety, accountability, and student success with practical leadership.

Students and teachers need access to timely counseling, crisis intervention, and trained mental health professionals, but support must also include safe schools, discipline, and positive learning environments that reduce stress before a crisis occurs. We must equip staff to recognize concerns early, involve parents, and ensure resources are practical, effective, and focused on student and teacher well-being.

My son. After seeing my child not get what he needed on his IEP. I knew I had to step up. After speaking to our board members even those considered educators it was clear they had no clue what it was like to be in a parents shoes.

We need a school counselor in every school. We need to meet the ASCA student - counselor recommended ratio. We should ensure that we have enough BCBA’s working in at least every elementary school.

We need to attract and retain the best teachers and staff possible. We have lost so many teachers to other schools in the district because the jobs at those schools were more attractive. Our kids in Loris and Green Sea deserve the best teachers that we have. We need to incentivize teachers that teach in Title 1 schools for longer than 5 years. The other issue that is very important to me is school safety. We need our safety teams to be more visible and moving around the campus more.

There should be mental health counselors in every school cluster that can be available within a short period of time. So often counseling is only available after a tragedy or when extreme behaviors become evident. I am a proponent of being proactive rather than reactive. Teachers also need counseling to handle the stress of teaching and being responsible for all of their students every day.