WHY I'M RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION
I care deeply about the Eanes-Westlake community. Over 20 years ago, I chose to move here and put down roots so that I could raise my children in one of the best school districts in the nation. We could have moved anywhere, but we chose Eanes. For the last 3 years, as a school board trustee, I have had the opportunity to study our district and public education with a unique lens. I have asked A LOT of questions and developed many relationships - both within our district and across the state of Texas, with other parents, trustees, education experts, and staffers and legislators under the pink dome.
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I am ready and eager to continue in this role. With new leadership at the helm, the future of Eanes excites me, but we must navigate these waters wisely. To be sure, we face challenges, but I know that if we all work together, and chart a vision together, Eanes will remain a leader in public education and a community with a rich legacy of success.​
HOW I THINK:
In my career and volunteer work, I have been recognized by many as an open-minded individual who highly values stakeholder input in the decision-making process. I strive to make informed decisions in every situation. As a trustee, that means listening to a variety of voices within the community to hear different perspectives and ideas for possible solutions. I am known for sitting down with anyone - I welcome the opportunity to have difficult conversations. Again and again, I am reminded that Westlake is a diverse community with varying needs and priorities across neighborhoods, schools, and even within households and families.
While I have acquired a considerable depth and breadth of knowledge about Eanes and Westlake over the years, I recognized that our challenges have evolved and there is always more to learn. I remain committed to learning from all voices in the community to understand the various perspectives on how we can as a district provide the best education possible for our children. I also recognize that often compromise is needed in order to move us forward.
The challenges that our district faces are complex with many variables involved. While my background in science and engineering lends itself to an evidence-based mindset and a desire to focus on outcomes and metrics, I understand that numbers very often do NOT tell the whole story, particularly in education. We must look to qualitative methods and more nuanced analysis to fully understand the questions before us and provide better insight into the data.
I want to continue to bring this data-driven yet humanistic approach and rigor to the Eanes ISD School board. The more we can make decisions supported by data, reason, and community input, the more successfully we can address the challenges ahead.​
MY PRIORITIES:
Teacher quality is widely recognized as the most important variable in a student’s educational success. As such, we must continue to advocate for policies that increase teacher salaries and create a culture that makes them want to return to Eanes each fall. Heck, we want them excited to walk in the door and inspire learners every single day!
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One cost-effective way to do this is to simply ask for their opinions. To make important decisions that impact them AFTER genuinely seeking their input. To help them understand the WHY behind decisions once they are made. I know that we have room for improvement here. I've lived in Eanes for 20 years and have developed relationships with A LOT of teachers. I hear their concerns.
I am excited to see our new superintendent jump in and engage in REAL conversations with not just our principals but our teachers and other support staff. Of course, he cannot sit down with every employee, but I know that what he learns will inform changes that will positively impact our district. He himself has been a teacher, a coach, a principal. He gets it. ​
SUPPORTING
TEACHERS
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Fiscal responsibility and transparency is of the utmost importance for our district. Since inception of the FIRST rating system, Eanes has been awarded the highest grade possible each year. The district is meticulous in its accounting and has responsibly maintained a strong fund balance over the years. The Board of Trustees has directed administration to bring forth a balanced budget for FY27. These are difficult fiscal times in which we are having to make cuts that no one wants to make and we have done so with the fund balance always in mind. ​
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Why are we here?
Eanes, like most other entities, has faced significant inflation (~20%) over recent years. At the same time, public education funding remained stagnant during the 2021 and 2023 legislative sessions. Funding from the most recent session in 2025 saw significant investment in teacher pay (truly something to celebrate!), but insufficient funding to cover increased expenditures across other areas (facilities maintenance, utilities, insurance....and special education services!)
I know that our new superintendent, Kirk Koennecke, who took the helm in January and who I helped hire, has been working hard to make his own informed assessment of the budget cuts that were developed by administration and vetted by the Finance and Personnel Subcommittee of the Board this past fall. I expect that when the budget is up for a vote in June, it will look a little different than it did in January, and it will have his fingerprint on it. (Fun Fact: the Finance and Personnel Subcommittee was formed at my request and additional community members were brought to the table also at my request.)​​​​
As a recognized leader in the provision of special education services, Eanes must continue to strive for the earliest possible identification of neurodivergent learning styles and the subsequent provision of the appropriate accommodations and supports. This is how we achieve the best student outcomes possible. A strong, collaborative partnership between teachers, parents, and administrators is a key element in a student's success.
Student support extends far beyond special education services, of course. It is grounded in a culture of caring, inclusion, kindness, and perseverance. It includes awareness and broad acceptance of the multitude of characteristics that make us unique. These essential elements for student well-being ultimately translate into greater student success at Eanes and beyond.​​​
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We always have room for improvement in these areas, and I believe we must keep student support a priority. This priority has spillover effects into another priority - safety - as mentioned in more detail below. As we work to provide a welcoming environment and opportunities for all within the Eanes experience, it is important that we monitor the impact of our efforts and listen to feedback and suggestions from all stakeholders - students, families, and staff. The district is fortunate to have the support and dedication of our district CARE Committee and also Eanes For Everyone, whose work focuses on helping us understand and celebrate our differences and creates opportunities for important conversations and growth.​
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STUDENT SUPPORT & SPECIAL EDUCATION
SAFETY
The mental wellbeing of our students and staff is vital. Arguably, anyone who harms our children and our school community is not mentally sound. We must continue to build a culture of inclusion and kindness as a part of our defense against unthinkable acts. Sadly, these acts encompass those that create mass harm and terror and also acts that are private and secretive, including self-harm.
A vital part of our culture and norms must be the expectation to immediately report concerns using variety of channels including Westlake Watch, our state-mandated "quick report" system that is monitored 24/7. Culture is built slowly over time. We must work every day to use words and take actions that make these belief systems percolate into every corner of our community. We must educate our students, staff, and parents so that they know what signs to look for and how best to voice concerns and to whom.
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Eanes has worked consistently over many years to make our campuses secure. However, this job is never done. It is a priority that demands an attitude of continuous improvement and vigilence.
TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY
Continued focus on doing our best to provide timely, comprehensive, and easily accessible information about what is happening in our classrooms and across our district as a whole is vital to developing trust, building community, and ensuring that Eanes operates as efficiently as possible.
Capturing people's attention in a world with crowded inboxes and constant push notifications is a challenge - especially when those people are busy parents. We must continue to explore how parents want to receive information and use multiple channels to connect with not only Eanes parents but also residents whose children have graduated or have yet to enter Kindergarten. We must make good effort to engage with every taxpayer in our district whether they have children or not. Communication styles and tools are advancing, and being creative and innovative on this front is important. In a time when budgets are constrained, getting the most bang-for-the-buck with our communication dollars is key.
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Two words I have used frequently over the last three years are "metrics" and "dashboard." I learned early on as a trustee that these words can evoke apprehension in some, but we must get better at identifying the metrics that we need to measure our success in reaching our goals. Together, we can design a customized system that provides timely information via dashboards to everyone in our Eanes ecosystem. The technology is available, and it is becoming cheaper by the minute.
EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
​Over the last 30 years, educational technology has slowly crept its way into our classrooms, with promises of differentiated learning and provision of the skills needed to be successful in the workplace of the future. These tools have also promised to help teachers do their jobs better - to enable students to advance at the pace best for them & engage them with "gamified" incentives. Decades later, as we move full steam into the world of AI, we must stop and ask ourselves, as a community: "What have we gained?" and "What have we lost?" And as we consider how to employ AI in education, we must ask: "What do we stand to gain?" and "What do we stand to lose?" This is a strategic decision for our district and must be a part of the community conversation that informs district administration and the Board of Trustees.​
LEGISLATIVE
ADVOCACY
We will do what we must to shore up our finances in Eanes. We will continue to think creatively and look for innovative solutions, but we must also state our case as convincingly as possible to the Texas legislature. It would be irresponsible for me as a trustee to not also continue to have conversations with lawmakers to illustrate how unfunded and underfunded mandates have constricted us over time and how they are negatively impacting one of the best public school systems in the nation.
For that reason, I am committed to helping Eanes approach legislative advocacy differently for the 90th Session in 2027. I am one of ten community and staff members (along with our new superintendent, Kirk Koennecke) who are participating in 18 months of training through Raise Your Hand Texas, a non-partisan entity focused on properly funding public education. Our cohort is passionate about educating and empowering our community so that we together can understand and to tell the Eanes story. I am also one of three trustees who comprise the Legislative Committee and work to strengthen our relationships at the Capitol and ensure that Eanes' voice is heard.​
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Stay tuned! We will need your voice to help us impact change.​
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VISIONARY
PLANNING
Education is at a pivotal point. Both funding sources and pedagogy are changing. Technology and the education freemarket are variables that we must talk about as a community during the strategic planning process. We are reaching a critical point where we must seriously consider sizable investments in major capital improvement projects to address aging facilities that are becoming more costly to maintain and are no longer able to adequately serve the various programs that use them.
In 2023, our district began a thoughtful and extensive process of Long Range Facilities Planning. Campus teams, which included well over 150 staff, students, and parents, provided input for a district committee (appointed by the Board of Trustees) with 18 members of the Westlake community to develop a vision for future investment in the infrastructure of the district. I served as an ex officio member of the LRFPC, attending all committee and subcommittee meetings.
The committee's report was presented to the Board of Trustees in May 2025 with the expectation that ADDITIONAL community engagement will seek to both communicate the committee's vision and understand what elements of the plan are supported by voters. ​​
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