Training and Experience
During my 34 year teaching career, from which I retired in June of 2023, I served as a department chair, a mentor teacher, a curriculum consultant, and the coach of the debate team for 31 years. I have not run for public office before, but I am taking this opportunity to continue a life of public service.
Volunteer/Community Service
I volunteer roughly 15 hours per week with the Medina City Schools and the OSDA, served for 9 years as an elected member of the board of directors for the OSDA (unpaid position), and am a team member with Honesty in Education.
I will write and support legislation that truly provides equal and meaningful access to quality public education, health care, and peaceful civic engagement. I will oppose policy efforts that target individuals who do not conform to a political party's acceptable norms. In order to protect individual rights, we must first respect individuality.
Recent efforts to restrict voter access (through timing, location, means of voting, and physical accessibility to voting) must be repealed. Voting is the only remaining check on political power in Ohio. Gerrymandered supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature inherently grant them unchecked power. Democracy requires checks and balances. In Ohio, we have neither.
We can reform public education by reintroducing workforce training as a legitimate and valued aspect of education. I have always been and will always be a supporter of traditional academic pursuits, but education comes in many forms (as do those who would be educated). The availability of a trained workforce is likely the most appealing draw to new business growth.
I dream of a day when education (even as a construct) is truly valued by society rather than demonized as a political weapon of division. I will strive to foster that message and support legislation that fully, constitutionally, and equitably funds public education regardless of the political strength of a district's demographics. Further, curriculum must be authentic and objectively true. Whitewashing our history and our present only harms the future.
The state has an obligation to ensure that local governments treat all people with dignity and provide equal opportunity for all individuals. With that obligation comes a responsibility to provide resources to local communities who are unable to fund those policies. Tax bases across the state are not the same, and we must as a state be willing to support those in need even if angering those of means: "From each according to their ability; to each according to their need."
The government is absolutely responsible for public access to quality healthcare. The government must not usurp the medical authority of doctor/patient decisions. We must be vigilant in protecting the letter and spirit of our new constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights. The current Ohio legislature has already introduced legislation to circumvent it.
The environment is inherently a shared and vital resource. As such, it must be protected from political, economic, and industrial exploitation.
I believe this to be the primary function and obligation of government in a world where discrimination comes in so many forms: racial, ethnic, economic, and identity. These are sometimes very obvious and sometimes quite subtle and nuanced. In all cases, the targeting of any individual or group undermines the collective wellbeing of society. It is a shameful reality that human dignity requires protection, but it does.
