platform

I am running for School Board because I care deeply about the success our public school system — it is the reason why many of us choose to live in Arlington. I am committed to serve as long as needed to ensure that Arlington Public Schools continues to be outstanding and that every student is given the opportunities and support needed to be successful.

Effective Transparency

The current process APS and the school board uses to communicate proposals and changes has not been effective, and instead has sometimes created a reaction of mistrust. Feedback is solicited from parents or the community, but there is rarely any visible effect from that feedback. I plan to:

• Make sure the any proposals and decisions made by APS and the School Board are driven by well-vetted data and solid research
• Publish plans before they are at the proposal stage, and ask for feedback from stakeholders — parents, teachers, students, and the community
• Use that feedback to refine metrics that drive the proposal process
• Consider multiple proposals, and communicate how those proposals align with goals and metrics
• Then get wider community feedback for the final proposals

Most of the decisions made by APS and the school board involved trade offs. How the decision process is communicated, and the level of community involvement affects how those decisions are received. It’s not enough to provide results — we have to show the work to earn trust.

I current lead teams who are building tools for transparency, communication, and complex decision-making. Building similar tools and processes for the APS and school board decision process will allow us to involve the community earlier and more often in an asynchronous fashion, which will still allow fast and responsive decision-making. By making parents, teachers, and members of the community partners in the decision-making process, we can make respond to new challenges in a fair and responsive way.

Supporting Teachers

Teachers are the heart of the school system. With teacher shortages and burnout all over the country, we need to help support the talented educators we have in Arlington. I plan to:

• Make sure that our teachers feel heard and supported through actions, not just words
• Reduce the number of tasks assigned to teachers that are not related to teaching students
• Provide more opportunities for teachers to collaborate so they can share ideas

Through my work as a software lead in the healthcare sector, I have led efforts that dramatically reduce the reporting burden for clinicians. As in education, clinicians spend a significant percentage of their time on mandatory documentation, and much of this documentation can be automated in a way that preserves accuracy while streamlining the manual burden. Within the clinical space, my team’s efforts have increased mandatory documentation compliance rates from 3% to 95% by dramatically reducing the amount of time that people need to spend on documentation. I would like to bring the same assistance to our teachers so they can spend more time teaching.