Safe Schools Where Every Kansas Kid Can Learn

Every child in District 5 deserves to read fluently and understand math at grade level — full stop. That's not a luxury or a nice-to-have; it's the foundation everything else in school and in life is built on. If a student can't read well by third or fourth grade, every subject after that gets harder. If a student doesn't have solid math fundamentals, doors close on careers in agriculture, healthcare, skilled trades, and dozens of other fields our rural communities depend on.

I'm running for the State Board of Education because I believe Kansas can and must do better here, especially for the kids in our rural districts. I've spent more than 30 years in classrooms, and a significant part of that time was spent directly on literacy and language instruction — teaching K-12 English language learners, high school literature and English Language Arts, and college-level composition and academic writing. I've also developed curricula, written textbooks, and led teacher trainings. I understand, from direct classroom experience, what separates instruction that actually builds reading skill from instruction that just moves kids through a textbook.

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Right now, too many Kansas students are falling behind in both reading and math, and the gap is often widest in rural districts like the ones across District 5's 45 counties. Some of that comes down to resources: rural schools frequently can't afford reading specialists, math interventionists, or extra tutoring support, especially when the State isn't fully meeting its own funding obligations. Some of it comes down to staffing: when a district can't recruit or retain certified teachers, students sometimes end up being taught core reading and math content by well-meaning teachers who weren't trained in that specific subject. And some of it comes down to testing decisions made far from the classroom, without enough input from the educators who actually see how students are progressing day to day.

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As a State Board member, I want to push for a few concrete things. First, real investment in early literacy and early math intervention — catching struggling readers and strugglers with number sense in elementary school, when intervention is most effective, rather than waiting until middle or high school when the gaps are harder to close.

Second, making sure rural districts have access to reading and math specialists, even if that means regional or shared staffing models initially that let smaller districts pool resources. Third, supporting strong, sustained professional development for teachers in evidence-based reading and math instruction, rather than one-off trainings that don't translate into the classroom. These shouldn't be paid for by teachers who already suffer from an institution that doesn't pay them a living wage in many cases.

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I also believe parents and grandparents — like me — need to be partners in this effort, not bystanders. Reading and math improvement doesn't happen through state mandates alone; it happens when families, teachers, and schools are working from the same information and the same goals. I want the State Board to support that kind of partnership, not get in the way of it.

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This issue matters to me both as an educator and as a grandmother with grandchildren in District 5 schools. I've watched what happens when a student falls behind in reading early and never quite catches up, and I've watched what's possible when the right intervention reaches a struggling student in time.

I know the difference isn't mysterious — it's resources, trained staff, and sustained attention, all things a well-functioning State Board can help make sure every district in Kansas actually has.

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To accomplish these goals, I believe the State Board of Education should be made up of people who understand classrooms, not just policy memos. I believe every child in District 5, no matter how rural their town or how small their school, deserves the same shot at a quality education as a kid in Johnson County or Topeka.

District 5's kids are just as capable as kids anywhere else in this state. What they need is a State Board and Legistature that takes reading and math proficiency seriously enough to fund it, staff it, and measure it honestly. That's the kind of board member I intend to be.I'm ready to be the one fighting for our kids in Topeka.

Well-funded Public Schools  and Long Term Community Impact

School funding gets discussed like a line item — a number on a budget sheet, disconnected from everyday life and easy for people far from rural Kansas to overlook. I see it differently. Our schools are the foundation that everything else in a rural Kansas community is built on — the local economy, the housing market, the ability to attract a young doctor or a new business — and when that foundation cracks, the damage doesn't stop at the schoolhouse door.

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Here's the cycle I've watched play out across rural communities throughout my long career: when schools struggle, kids grow up and leave for opportunities elsewhere. They build careers and raise their own children somewhere else — somewhere with more competitive teacher pay, more course offerings, and stronger school systems overall. Houses in town sit empty because there's no one moving in to fill them. The community stops attracting new businesses and new families looking to put down roots, since one of the first questions any young family asks is "how are the schools?" Enrollment drops, and because school funding is tied directly to enrollment, funding drops right along with it, creating a downward spiral that's hard to reverse. Eventually, in the worst cases, a town loses its school altogether — and once that happens, it almost never comes back, taking a piece of that community's identity and future with it.

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This isn't a hypothetical to me. I've intentionally chosen to teach in rural communities for most of my career, in multiple states, because I understand how much rides on these schools — not just for the kids in the classroom, but for parents deciding whether to stay in town, for local businesses that depend on families sticking around and spending money locally, and for older residents, like the folks I represent through the Rawlins County Silver-Haired Legislature, who want to see their hometowns survive for their grandchildren rather than slowly empty out around them.

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I believe we can break this cycle by treating school investment as a long-term community strategy, not just an annual budget fight that resets every legislative session. Strong schools keep families in town. They give graduates a genuine reason to come home and raise their own kids here instead of settling somewhere else. They make a community attractive to a business deciding whether to open its doors in District 5 or somewhere else entirely because every employer wants to know their future workforce will have access to good schools. In that sense, strong schools function as economic development, workforce development, and community development, all at once — even though they rarely get talked about in those terms by people making budget decisions in Topeka.

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My priority on the State Board would be pushing legislators in Topeka to fund public education at the level they've already committed to under the State's own mandates — not as a favor to rural Kansas, but as an investment that pays itself back many times over by keeping communities from hollowing out and losing the next generation entirely.

I've already had these conversations directly with legislators and other candidates across the political spectrum, and I've found real agreement that education needs to be properly funded, even when there's disagreement about the details of how to get there.

What's been missing is a consistent, credible voice from someone who has actually lived inside these classrooms for three decades — someone who can speak to exactly how a funding decision made in Topeka shows up in a District 5 classroom: in whether a reading specialist is available, in whether a leaking roof gets fixed before winter, in whether a young teacher decides to stay another year or move on to Colorado or Nebraska for better pay.

I want to serve as the bridge between rural Kansas classrooms and the people in Topeka who control the budget. I've spent my career on one side of that bridge, standing in front of students and watching firsthand what underfunding does to a school and a community over time. Now I'm asking District 5 voters to help me stand on the other side of it too — as a board member who understands that funding our schools today is how we keep our towns alive tomorrow, for the next generation of Kansas families who are still deciding whether their hometown has a future worth staying for.

Local, District and State Partnership that Actually Works

I believe the people closest to a classroom — teachers, principals, school boards, and parents — are the ones best equipped to make decisions about that classroom, far better positioned than a committee in Topeka that has never set foot in their building. That's why local control is a core piece of how I think about the State Board's role: not as a body that dictates to every district from the capital, but as a body that protects districts' ability to make the right calls for their own students, while making sure the State holds up its end of the bargain on funding and support.

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In a district as large and varied as ours — 45 counties across western Kansas — no single policy fits every school. A district serving a few hundred students in one county faces different staffing realities, different transportation challenges, and different facility needs than a district twice its size two counties over. Some districts struggle to fill a single certified math teacher position; others are grappling with overcrowded classrooms and aging buildings that can't keep up with growth.

A State Board member who has only ever seen one type of school, in one type of community, can't legislate well for all of District 5. I've taught in multiple states and countries, in rural and urban settings alike, in public and Navy-affiliated classrooms, which means I've seen firsthand how differently "what works" can look from one community to the next, and how dangerous it can be to assume one solution fits everywhere.

That's also exactly why District 5 needs someone in Topeka who will actually show up and listen, not just vote along predetermined lines handed down by party leadership or outside interest groups. Over the course of this campaign, I am driving across all 45 counties in our district and sitting down with teachers, administrators, school board members, and parents to hear what's working and what isn't in their specific schools. I've sat in small-town coffee shops and county fair booths, listened at school board meetings, and had one-on-one conversations with people who rarely get asked what they think education policy should look like.

That groundwork doesn't stop once the election is over — it's how I intend to do the job for four years, not just four months of campaigning. A State Board member's responsibility isn't to impose a one-size-fits-all vision on every district from a desk in Topeka; it's to make sure every district's voice actually reaches the policy conversations that affect them, especially the smaller, more rural districts that often get overlooked entirely.

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At the same time, local control only works if the State meets its own obligations. Districts can't make good local decisions about staffing, curriculum, or building repairs if the funding and authority they need is being withheld or second-guessed from above.

Part of my role, as I see it, is pushing back when state-level decisions overreach into areas that local districts are better positioned to handle, while also pushing the State to fully deliver on the funding and support local districts are counting on and, in many cases, are legally entitled to under existing mandates.

Local control without adequate state funding isn't really local control at all — it's just the State stepping back from its responsibilities while leaving districts to figure out how to make do with less.

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I also believe a strong local voice means parents and educators should have real, ongoing input into decisions — not a single seat at the table during budget season once a year, but a genuine, two-way relationship with their school board and, through me, with the State Board itself. I plan to keep doing what I've done throughout this campaign: visiting schools, meeting with local boards, and bringing what I hear directly into State Board discussions, rather than disappearing into Topeka once the campaign signs come down and the votes are counted.

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District 5 is too large and too diverse for decisions about our schools to be made without input from the people actually living and working in them every day. I'm running to make sure that input has a permanent seat on the State Board — not just during election season, when every candidate suddenly wants to listen, but every single day I'd serve in that role, long after this campaign is over and the next election cycle begins.