Position/philosophy statement
Let's Put Student Learning First.
Current Occupation
Co-founder and Business Owner
Campaign Phone
(980)333-7456
I bring a systems-level approach to governance grounded in real-world experience. I am a DPS parent, first-generation college graduate, veteran, and local business owner. My background has trained me to analyze complex problems, listen carefully, and make thoughtful decisions with accountability. I understand how policy, budgets, and people intersect. I bring steady, pragmatic leadership focused on student outcomes, educator support, and responsible stewardship of public resources.
A school board member’s primary responsibility is governance—setting clear priorities, establishing sound policy, and holding the superintendent accountable for results. That means focusing on student outcomes, educator and staff success, fiscal responsibility, and safe, inclusive schools. Board members must listen to families, educators, and staff while making decisions that serve the entire district. Effective governance requires clarity, transparency, and consistent follow-through.
The most critical needs are improving academic outcomes, retaining strong educators, and ensuring resources are used effectively. I would prioritize funding that directly supports classroom instruction, early literacy, and student support services. At the same time, we must stabilize our workforce by investing in working conditions and professional support. Every budget decision should clearly connect back to student learning and long-term district sustainability.
Teacher retention starts with trust, clarity, and support. We must improve working conditions by providing consistent leadership, clear expectations, and meaningful professional development. The board should ensure competitive compensation while also focusing on manageable workloads, access to instructional resources, and strong school leadership. Listening to educators and following through on commitments is essential to building a district where talented teachers want to stay.
The first 2000 days of a child's life are the most critical for development. Our community must provide options for children to learn, to gain their first experience of independence outside of the home, and to build social connections. This is particularly important for working families who also need childcare options and those for whom the expense of private day care or preschool becomes prohibitive. We have the opportunity through our public schools to set children on a path to success from their earliest days.
I am running with humility and seriousness about the role of governance. DPS is not one good idea away from success, and the Board cannot, and should not, try to solve everything on its own. But the Board can set the tone, ask better questions, and insist on clear accountability and follow-through.
My commitment is to steady leadership, honest communication, and respect for the people closest to our schools—students, families, educators, and staff. I am not running to manage optics or ideology. I am running to help DPS become a trusted institution where decisions are grounded in student outcomes, resources are used responsibly, and our community can have confidence and pride in its public schools.
Position/philosophy statement
I’m running because our schools need leadership that listens to vulnerable communities and brings their voices to the table.
Current Occupation
CEO
Campaign Phone
609-318-4601
I bring over 13 years of experience working with public schools, including four years with Durham Public Schools as a parent, foster parent, contractor, and advocate. I serve as Vice President of the PTA at Southwest Elementary and have led the school’s Title I initiative, advocating for transportation access, student safety, and family support during crises.
As a Black mom of ESL learners and a foster parent, I have firsthand experience navigating inequities across DPS schools. I bring a restorative, trauma-informed lens and strong governance experience from serving on the City of Durham Recreation Advisory Commission and the Greater Durham Black Chamber of Commerce Board, where I review budgets, advance equity, and ensure accountability.
The most important responsibility is strong strategic governance. The board sets the district’s vision, adopts policy, approves budgets, and ensures accountability, not by managing daily operations, but by holding the superintendent responsible for results. This requires reviewing data, listening to students, families, and educators, ensuring policies and resources align with community needs and equity goals.
The superintendent is the board’s employee, and the board must set clear expectations, ask hard questions, and apply pressure when goals are not being met. Effective governance is collaboration paired with oversight, rooted in transparency, accountability, and meaningful community partnership, not decision-making behind closed doors.
The most critical needs in DPS are budget stability and transparency, student mental health and safety, and fair pay and working conditions for school staff. I would prioritize restoring trust through strong oversight, clear budget communication, and real community engagement so families and staff understand tradeoffs and decisions.
Student learning depends on feeling safe and supported, which requires trauma-informed practices, anti-bullying protections, and clear policies to protect immigrant students and families. Finally, supporting educators is non-negotiable; fair pay, policies like paid bereavement leave, and strong grievance processes are essential. Strong schools start by investing in the adults who serve students every day.
DPS can strengthen pipelines, improve compensation, and create supportive working conditions. The district should deepen partnerships with local universities, especially Durham Tech, NCCU, and Duke to create clear pathways into DPS classrooms, while reducing barriers through licensure exam support and covered testing costs.
Retention is the larger challenge. Educators are being asked to do more with less, leading to burnout and turnover. DPS must improve pay, expand benefits like paid bereavement leave, and foster workplace cultures where staff feel heard and safe. Mentorship, professional growth, leadership pathways, and incentives such as affordable housing or rental support can be a big for long-term retention.
Pre-Kindergarten is critically important to the success of students, families, and the district as a whole. High-quality Pre-K gives children early access to classroom learning, social-emotional development, and structured routines that prepare them for kindergarten and beyond.
It helps reduce achievement gaps before they widen and supports children in building confidence, language, and foundational skills. Pre-K also lightens the load on working families by ensuring children are supported in their development, rather than placing the full responsibility of school readiness on parents. Investing in Pre-K is one of the most effective ways to strengthen long-term academic outcomes and family stability.
I am running for school board because I believe Durham deserves leadership rooted in care, accountability, and transparency. As a parent, foster parent, and longtime advocate, I have seen firsthand how policy decisions impact students, families, and educators, especially those who are most vulnerable.
I bring a restorative, trauma-informed lens to governance, focusing on root causes rather than reactive responses. My experience on governing boards and in school organizing has taught me how to ask hard questions, build coalitions, and ensure public institutions truly serve the people they are meant to serve. I am committed to listening deeply, communicating clearly, and working collaboratively to rebuild trust, strengthen our schools, and ensure every child in DPS has access to safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments.
Position/philosophy statement
Any child should walk into any DPS school and get a high-quality education. And we know that isn’t happening right now. We can win families back by building a budget that puts students at the heart of decision making.
Current Occupation
Professor of Education Policy
Age (optional)
44
DPS’s core systems of finance, HR, and operations are broken. It’s one thing to name problems; it’s another to fix them. My professional qualifications mean that I can hit the ground running on Day One. As an education policy professor, I am an analytical problem solver who helps districts build workable systems. School funding is complicated, but I understand different funding sources and how to make budget decisions that actually work for students. I’m a DPS mom and former PTA president. I’ve advocated for children with reading disabilities, built partnerships, and organized volunteers to help students learn to read. At the same time, I’ve demanded transparency about District resource allocation to schools so that student needs are met.
NC mandates that school boards “provide students with… a sound basic education.” Our Board has three core ways of doing that: 1) overseeing a ~$700M budget; 2) evaluating the Superintendent; and 3) passing policy. Too often, the current Board has abdicated these duties.
I will govern with integrity and a commitment to evidence-based decisions. I will hold leadership accountable for fixing failures in finance, HR, and operations that hinder our classrooms. I will work with colleagues to establish well-defined goals and provide the transparency that DPS families and employees deserve. DPS is at a crossroads; we must elect independent thinkers who will return the focus to students and restore public trust through action, not just words.
DPS faces systemic challenges, including a recent budget shortfall, that have led to student enrollment drops and unsustainable teacher attrition. We can change the trajectory. To do so, we need a transparent budget that reflects our values and a turnaround plan for financial operations.
The Superintendent and the Board must create a budget that reflects the true needs of our schools, rather than recycling the same budget year after year. I have advocated for zero-based budgeting at DPS because I believe it is the best way for us to differentiate the spending that helps our students from the spending that squanders resources. If we plan proactively, we can achieve our priorities as a district within our current funding levels.
Of all the resources in a school, classroom teachers are the most important for student learning. When students have effective teachers, they are more likely to complete college and have more successful careers. To recruit and retain teachers, DPS must be a great place to work. The first step is instituting effective HR systems that treat employees like professionals. DPS must develop clear and transparent pay scales, modernize payroll so that paychecks are right, and allow employees to have flexibility over pay periods. The District should also put District practices around resource and position allocations to schools in writing. We can also use local dollars to increase job security and create stable teaching teams at schools.
Early education is critical for every child’s long-term success. But it represents an untenable expense for many families. I’m proud to live in a county like Durham that has free and reduced-cost Pre-K options. Durham Pre-K relies on multiple financial sources: county dollars, Head Start funding, DPS support, and several others. Today we do not have a regularly scheduled update to the Board on the impact of our Pre-K dollars. As a Board member, my first step in ensuring we are building the right solutions for our early childhood learners would be to bring more transparency to the work today, understand why many seats are still left unfilled despite demand and promote better engagement between DPS and the broader Durham Pre-K community.
Every DPS student should have good choices when they graduate from high school. For some, that may mean pursuing higher education; for others, that may mean entering the workforce with tangible knowledge and skills. Public education faces significant challenges from the federal and state government, making it increasingly difficult to accomplish that goal.
As a School Board, we can only focus on what’s in our control: making sure our budgeting process, our HR systems, and our operations work as best they can so that our investments go back into our classrooms and to DPS students. Parents want their children to be successful, to be able to read and write, to think critically, to have good options after high school. To make their lives work, parents also need basic things like reliable transportation and affordable aftercare at elementary schools. These are the things that can keep a child in public school, and they are the things that the Board can control. So let’s focus on that.
