The main responsibility is to the students and teachers. I want to make sure that all students are safe, challenged, and ready to be good citizens in our community. The teachers should feel excited and relevant to work in our district. I have been supporting them for 4 years now on the board. I’m looking forward to another four years!

Our challenges stem from the changing educational environment that is affecting all school districts. The most notable ones are the vouchers, charter schools, property tax reduction to our district due to county commissioners, and the rising costs of running a school district. Also, I want to mention that a challenge is supporting our students mental health. We already have mental health supports in all of our schools, but can always use more. Often our students who need this help will have behavior issues. It is all connected.

As far as the financial issues, I want to make more county commissioners aware of the property tax situation. The vouchers and charter schools are out of my control. I have made it clear that I do not support them. I always fight to keep a sensible budget and no waste.

My main responsibility is to serve our families in Murfreesboro well. I monitor how our tax dollars are spent. My role is also to ensure student safety and high quality education. I want to make sure MCS is a tight well run district.

The growth in our city is a real challenge. Secondly, budgeting to meet the needs of our very diverse student population.

I work closely with the director of schools and our department heads. We meet regularly to tackle these challenges. Of course, at budget time we look at how we need to shift priorities based on the greatest needs. I ensure every area of priority is well staffed. I make sure we are retaining our valuable staff for longevity of crucial programming.

School boards set the path and make high-level decisions for a school district. The primary responsibilities of school board members are to: 1) set the budget for the school system, 2) pass policies to govern the school system, and 3) hire and evaluate the Director of Schools. To do these jobs well, school board members should be transparent and available to families, employees, and community members.

For the past two election cycles, I said that growth and behavior/mental health issues were the biggest challenges facing MCS. This time, however, we are facing a new challenge: a tighter budget because of decisions made by local leaders to shift property tax dollars away from the education funds shared by RCS and MCS. Fortunately, thanks to our previous careful budgeting, we have a healthy fund balance to weather this period. But we cannot continue to dip into our savings to meet our budget forever.

We have already met with local leaders to discuss how their funding decisions affect Murfreesboro City Schools. We are looking for places to tighten our fiscal belt without losing our focus on our students. My goal is always to provide the best possible education for the children of Murfreesboro, and that will not change. We have always been careful with the public dollars that fund us, and we now have to examine our budget choices even more closely to make sure every dollar counts for keeping our students known, safe, challenged, and empowered.