Culture
Cherry Creek School District’s (CCSD) 'Dedication to Excellence' should remain our founding goal and primary focus for our students' education. Each child deserves an individualized approach to their learning needs, environment, and structure. Resources and reinforcements which promote academic excellence should exist for any student who desires to excel. We are a culture of collaboration. We understand that we are Better Together.
Educators
I have a deep love and respect for teachers who bring such passion to their craft. I will provide teachers with the support they need to align with CCSD's standard of excellence. My ultimate goal is to champion a supportive culture, so parents and teachers feel heard and respected. Doing this fosters a working environment where school leadership, the board, teachers, and parents are unified in supporting students.
Parents
As a parent and proud member of our community, I plan to promote parental involvement and awareness within our district. Parents are seeking accountability and transparency, and it is my mission to provide reliable communication and information from the board to its stakeholders. I will bring my fellow parents confidence, clarity, and peace of mind by genuinely listening to/advocating for their concerns
Support through Transparency
Through my campaign, I have spoken to many parents' hearing their concerns and frustration with the lack of transparency, mutual communication, and allowance of parental input from our district. I have listened and share the concern that parents feel disrespected, ignored, and shut out of their children’s schools. There are valid concerns that the teachers union's voice is more important than the parents' voice and input. I want both aisles to feel supported, heard, and involved. While I believe our parents need to be supported, our wonderful educators need support just the same to be successful. By working together, we will create the best environment for our children. I want to create change to bridge parents, educators, and leadership to work together to have a strong, unified foundation for our children. I truly believe our students are most successful when parents, educators, and leadership work together. I want to provide easier navigation for parents to see meeting agendas and sign up for public comment. I want to ensure we do not rush through line-item agendas so that parents do not feel we are making board decisions behind their backs. I want to start an outward communication of school happenings, board meetings, curriculum discussions and foster two-way communication. I believe it is important to underutilize the 24-hour meeting notices; the Boards focus should be giving our parents adequate notice allowing them to have more involvement and input. Our children deserve time, patience, and extensive thought when making changes to our students' lives. I want to make sure our parents feel heard and bring their voices back into the fold. I want the happenings of our district to be communicated and readily available for all parents to see. Let us all work together for positive change, continued excellence, and a wonderful education for all.
Excellence in Education
As a Cherry Creek High School graduate, I can attest to the excellence our district is known for. I personally have experienced what it is like when our district looks at a child as an individual and what it is like when we create an educational path for that child to be successful in their future as an adult. I want to continue expanding on that excellence for each child in our district, no matter what area, socio-economic background, or history. Each child, regardless of background, deserves equal support that their peers receive. Whether at Cherry Creek High School or Smoky Hill High School, each child should all receive the same support, compassion, opportunities, and individualized treatment for a successful education within our District. We also owe our children in the district reasonable time to overlook, vet, study, and discuss with the stakeholders; any curriculum change, so we can unequivocally say we took the time our students deserve. Parents have recently voiced their concerns with the curriculum being rushed to vote, within just a few months, and with little to no parent input, this is not ok. This is why transparency in our district is important so that stakeholders and parents do not feel decisions are rushed or their concerns are not heard. I want to make sure that children are not boxed into categories because every family has an individual story, and each can achieve amazing things if we are supporting their education goals accordingly. When we rush education curriculum, remove parent voice, instead of fostering success we create opportunities of failure. Our kids deserve better. They deserve the time needed to make sure the curriculum represents all of our students, and that all of our students' needs are brought to the table when deciding change.
Choice, here's why
For the past 18 months, we have lived through unprecedented times, challenges, and change. We have had to adapt and overcome many obstacles in our lives. As we continue to adjust, we need to continue moving forward with the best interest of our children’s education, mental health, and physical health. We need to be stewards of protection to preserve our children’s well-being, their childhood, education, and continue making choices based on factual data without political motives. Our children have suffered extensively in their learning environments, and we cannot continue to have children fall behind as the years go on. We need to correct the gaps that children have suffered through this pandemic, and they deserve the excellent education that our district is known for. We also have seen children suffer by not individualizing their care within our school districts and silencing parents' advocation removed by removing parental choice. We need to look at each child individually and respect the parents’ choices regarding their children’s medical decisions. Whether it's in the best interest of their disability, mental health, physical health, or learning needs, in the end, the parents know what is best for their child's individual needs and care. We need to respect parents and their individual rights when they provide medical letters explaining their child’s needs and not try to take those decisions away from the parent or the child’s provider. We are in unprecedented times, and through this, we need to preserve a parents' right of CHOICE when it comes to medical decisions for their children. We have to look at the whole health of our children and weigh out what is in the best interest of each child, knowing there are multiple sides to a child’s health. Not preserving a parent's right to choose can set dangerous precedence moving forward, and I respect each parent who has voiced their concerns on their removal of choice. While we have learned there are times when we have to set certain standards per official orders, we ultimately need to preserve the right to choose.
Safety
I want to make sure each child is fostered in a safe learning environment. Districts thrive when positive relationships exist between the students, security staff, resource officers, safety officers, and overall staff. Kids need to feel safe mentally, physically, and environmentally to achieve a positive learning environment. By providing those positive relationships, children can find peace and focus on their education rather than worrying about their safety. Safety is a multi-faceted issue and one that changes from individual to individual. I want to provide opportunities for every student and family to voice their safety concerns and work towards realistically addressing those concerns. We can foster safety by providing additional resources outside of safety officers and creating programs for students to voice their concerns privately. Giving students these opportunities to create mutually respectful relationships with different safety personnel, we can also aid in setting up our students in success when dealing with safety concerns in their adult life. I know we can continue to provide a safe environment for all students by continuing to work towards creating a safe education for all.