Candidate for
Board Member; San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District; Area 2

Since my son started at Boulder Creek Elementary (he is now in the third grade), I have volunteered at BCE so I know just how great our schools really are and how much more attention they deserve.

Many of you already know me and my family simply because we have lived in the Valley since 1988, but for those of you I don't know, please let me tell you why I think I could do a good job on the SLVUSD School Board.

What most of you don't know is that I went to U.C. Berkeley, where I earned a Master's Degree in Education and three teaching credentials, one for teaching the Elementary grades, one for teaching High School English, and the other for High School History. I also earned a B.A. in Anthropology from U.C. Berkeley.

While working toward my M.A. in Education, I did educational research in testing strategies and readability. This gives me an understanding of what standardized tests can and cannot actually do for a child and a school. It also equips me to delve into School Board issues with the background knowledge to understand the larger implications of policy decisions.

As co-director of a community outreach education program, I set up and ran one of the first adult learning centers at the university; it was something like an early version of the U.C. Extension Program. To do this, I went out into the community to find experts on various subjects who could teach the curricula we wanted, then marketed the program in the community.

As a founding member of a private school for kids at risk of dropping out or getting expelled from school, I learned quite a bit about how to help these kids, as well as finding innovative yet practical solutions to many school administration issues, such as creative ways to find alternative sources of funding and keeping good teachers.

My professional career has been in communications in the computer industry. I have worked for most of the last 19 years as a manager and project leader, so handling large budgets, such as the budget for the SLVUSD, will not be new to me.