1. What do you believe is the role of a school board member?
A school board member must represent the taxpayers and make sure that the students are receiving a quality education. One important role of a board member is to establish goals for district staff, which will, if done correctly, bring people together across the district: staff, students, families. Adopting policies that guide the district’s administration is important in making sure the district meets its goals while allowing clearance for initiatives that are needed for different buildings. As a major taxing body, which is responsible for most of your property tax bill, school board members operate and manage the district within a budget that should reflect our values, make sound economic sense, and should communicate expenditures to taxpayers and have a plan that outlines success of future projects.
There are so many roles school board members play, and each one’s success is vital in ensuring a bright future for the Peotone School District. School board members should not reach into the day-to-day operations of the buildings in the way that many do now, which creates conflicts with administration decisions.
2. What do you see as the most pressing challenges facing the district and how will you address them?
The lack of transparency between the school board and the community is unfortunate and shouldn’t exist. The board has standing committees, two of which are the building and grounds committee and the finance committee. Both of the committees have the same three board members who serve on them and approve plans that include big ticket expenditures. Currently, the board and committees do not disclose committee reports during open board meetings. That is not what transparency looks like.
The financial mismanagement of the Athletic Field Project is another pressing issue.
Board overreach is another pressing challenge. The board has meddled in day-to-day life in the district rather than focusing on education and proper fiscal policy development. The building administrators we hired to do important work to support students and staff should have clear goals and be given the ability to focus on achieving them.
We need a board that listens to community concerns, no matter the topic, and responds to those concerns in their entirety. A board that trusts the administrators, faculty, and staff that it hires and takes action on issues only when necessary will guarantee a positive future for the district. Teachers should always feel comfortable approaching their administrators with issues and feeling heard when having those hard conversations.
3. How would you work to engage families and the community and ensure all voices are heard?
I would like to implement parental advisory committees. These committees will address specific issues that arise within the district. Once the committee feels the issues have been addressed, the committee will vote to dissolve as they see fit. This ensures parents’ voices and concerns are heard and can impact the board on decision making.
4. How will you promote inclusivity?
There is a disconnect between the board and students in the schools. To help the board better understand student perspectives, I would like a student to be appointed to the board each year in an advisory capacity. A student board member would provide a report each meeting, discuss happenings in the student body and improvements that can be made and student needs that improve the student life of Peotone schools.
5. What is your plan to address teacher shortages and retention?
Unfortunately, teacher retention is a problem across the state, in large part due to inadequate funding at the state level and the highly problematic Tier II pension system for public employees, which needs serious reform. I support the union’s efforts to fix these serious problems at the state level, and will be happy to assist in any way I can.
But this isn’t just a state problem. Every school in the IHSA Illinois Central Eight Conference has a higher retention rate than the Peotone School District. It’s an embarrassing truth, and should be eye-opening to all of us.
Strong and stable leadership is important and can impact the relationships between teachers and the school district. This academic year, teachers have been left in the lurch with new administrators being put in at all buildings at the same time. Teachers need to be supported and cannot be thrown into a situation of upheaval because of administrator drama or school board overreach.
I’ll take a “listen first, act second” strategy on the issue of teacher retention. Teachers are the ones who know the issues best. Being able to listen to teachers’ requests and support them in every way can dramatically impact their experience in the district.
6. How would you balance issues concerning safety, discipline, educator, and student mental wellness?
The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing shutdowns resulted in a significant amount of learning loss, and that includes social/emotional learning required to have a peaceful coexistence within a school. It’s important we continue to offer as many extracurricular opportunities as possible that provide a student with the chance to be around other students and learn how to engage in a group setting.
Every student and every staff member should feel safe when they’re at our schools. We need to rigorously enforce the rules to protect our students and teachers from harm. That means taking warning signs of depression, anxiety, aggression, or any other concern that could affect physical and mental wellbeing seriously and treating the whole student.
7. What is your philosophy on the role of technology and digital resources in education?
As we move into a world where more and more resources are becoming digitized, it’s important we also teach students how to properly use technology to their benefit. New advances allow students to access material on the go and be able to use it in their education. These advances allow new methods of engagement from students. Tools, like simulations and games, allow the learning environment to be more engaging. Traditionally dry subjects can turn interactive and bring dynamic experiences that can foster curiosity to strengthen material.
8. How would you address the need for updated school sports fields?
As a former student athlete of PHS, there is a need for upgrades and improvements of sporting fields. Currently, the school district, the Peotone Park District, and the Peotone Baseball Softball Association split the maintenance cost of the fields. For the school district, that comes out to about $500-$1,000 annually.
In the athletic fields project, the board decided to act first and plan second, which is a backwards approach. Planners at the school district thought it would be a great idea to build new fields on a flood plain alongside Oak Street. Oak Street residents have concern for their property as they would be at risk for flooding of their property with heavy rainfalls. The school district borrowed millions of dollars in February 2024 for these fields – and not a single shovel has broken ground on the project.
We are now paying interest on the borrowed money and have already spent $223,206.25, not including fees, on a project that now has an uncertain future. We cannot continue to mismanage our money. The board should collaborate with the Peotone Park District to upgrade the current infrastructure. The cost of the home plate to be moved back and to rebuild at the Park District baseball field would be about $150,000. If we used the $233,000 spent on the failed project to improve the current infrastructure at the park, we would have $80,000 left over to improve another field. With the money already borrowed, we should look towards improving the education of our students and lives of our teachers by getting our schools central air conditioning.
In short, I support updating the current fields for student athletes and community organizations to use.
9. How should school funding be allocated to best serve the needs of students and educators?
We need to focus on education, empowering those who are in the classroom with the resources they need to build the next generation of leaders. Comparing our school district’s students to those in Wilmington and Manteno, our students are 5% less proficient in math than those at the surrounding districts. In the Peotone School District, our students are 25% proficient in math, that is below the state average which sits at 28%. In order for our students to be competitive in an ever changing job market that demands more and more, we need to focus on educating the students. The current board has caught itself up in failed projects, such as the athletic fields, fighting other board members about failed referenda, and belittling students who speak in public board meetings. If elected, I plan to direct the focus of the board at what we should be prioritizing, the education of our students and upholding ourselves to be fiscally responsible to taxpayers.
10. Would you support a “phones away for the day” policy? Locking up students’ phones in lockers or magnetized bags?
This is an important issue and may be taken out of our hands as Gov. J.B. Pritzker, in his State of the State address, suggested legislation mandating that phones be out of student hands during the school day.
Should the State of Illinois fail to act, there are several things to consider. Students in the district are below average in math proficiency. At this time, I would not support magnetized bags to lock up students’ phones. I believe a parental advisory committee would be appropriate for this issue. This can be composed of stakeholders within the district: Parents, teachers, board members and administrators would serve and provide perspective on the committee to create a solution that is in the benefit of everyone: that respects the need of teachers to teach, students to learn, and parents to feel they can reach their students in the event of an emergency