My Priorities

When I first ran for this position, I introduced myself as the father of a son who couldn't talk and whose school district was failing my family. While my son has overcome many of the challenges that held him back in his early years, he continues to represent a growing segment of our student population (students with disabilities) who continue to be left behind.

My priority remains to advocate for students with disabilities, students whose needs are not being met in our district (especially black and brown students and those who come from marginalized backgrounds), and families who feel that our district does not care about their concerns.

As an accountant and government attorney, I also remain steadfast in my commitment to ensuring that our district can meet its financial obligations. Just a few years ago, we faced possible insolvency. Since I've joined the board, we have done a lot to improve our financial position - but many challenges remain. If we aren't solvent, then we can't deliver on our mission to educate our kids, and we can't push forward on my priorities around students with disabilities and those who are left behind. We need to remain solvent to achieve our goals, and I will continue to ensure we are - even if that means challenging the County Board of Education on their assumptions on how our district can balance its financial obligations with its mission.

My Commitments

In my first term as Trustee of Sacramento City Unified School District, I have remained steadfast in addressing the needs I identified when I first decided to run as well as the concerns parents and families have shared with me since I took office. Here are my continued commitments:

We need to focus on our district's culture, starting with the Board and through all staff, that we are focused on our kids' education and will have the hard conversations we need to have to do better for them.

We need to continue to invest in our staff, helping us recruit and fill the too many vacancies in our district and have adults in the room fully invested in our students' outcomes.

I will be present in my community, meeting with educators and families, and uplifting to top administrators what I'm hearing on our campuses, on sports fields, and in the grocery store.

I am a passionate voice for our special education students and families, and I will continue to challenge our broken practices to do better by our students who need the most help.

Addressing Our Challenges

Our school district is much better now than it was before I was elected - when we were simultaneously at the brink of insolvency, our labor unions were on strike, and we were struggling to reimagine what our educational model looked like coming out of the Covid-19 shutdowns. Yet, many challenges remain.

Our special education system, including our local plan area (SELPA), remains broken. District-level staff are overwhelmed and unequipped to address our challenges. School staff, from teachers and aides to contractors, remain unclear on what services they should be providing. We have contracted with retired administrators to keep the programs afloat while long-term and permanent fixes remain elusive. The Black Parallel School Board, Sacramento County Grand Jury, and others before them have confirmed that this is a significant problem that is not going away. I will not let the District forget that this needs to be fixed permanently and immediately.

Our black, brown, and disadvantaged students continue to perform worse than their peers statewide and within our district on virtually every benchmark we evaluate them on. We continue to see outcomes at some schools that dramatically exceed the outcomes at other schools - even when those schools are just a few miles away from each other. I will continue to fight for educational equity for all of our students, even when that means uncomfortable conversations.

Our district is is unwilling or unable to make the big changes needed to address the current district practices that are failing our students. We need to completely re-evaluate how we approach our areas of concern to improve the quality of our education for all of our kids. I will continue to shake up the status quo, just as I have been doing since I joined the Board.

Our financial challenges remain. We've had a few good years thanks in large part to the influx of relief funds made available during the pandemic. Now that those funds are expiring, the urgency to address our underlying fiscal picture is once again apparent. We have made progress in this area, with excellent staff who are committed to reimagining how we approach our budget. I will support staff in their efforts and always keep an eye on the bottom line in every decision I make.