Stances on Key Issues
I’ve been on the dais.
I’ve analyzed thousands of pages of memos and reports.
I’ve spoken with education experts across the country.
Here’s how we elevate academic standards and modernize our schools
Our Next Superintendent
Our board is committed to a thoughtful and transparent process for our next superintendent. A main factor in selecting our search was their track record with community outreach.
The D65 superintendency is an incredible opportunity for the right candidate. A talented, ambitious person gets to leave an enormous mark while living in a beautiful city that embraces public education.
I’m personally prioritizing the four main hard skills: organizational leadership; strategic planning; coalition building; fiscal management.
I’m strongly in favor of requiring our next superintendent to live in D65. But I’m also keeping an open mind depending on our candidate pipeline and the specifics of our finalists.
Redefining Community
We’re all deeply connected to our neighborhood elementary schools.
They’re usually the place where we’ve seen our own children grow. We can spend a decade getting to know the educators, the staff, and following familiar routines.
But we can also recognize that we’re all each other’s neighbors throughout D65, regardless of school assignment zone or ward lines.
The future of D65 will be shaped by all the Evanston and Skokie coming together to embrace a smaller number of high-impact schools that draw kids throughout the district.
Financial Sustainability
We must take two steps to maximize the educational impact of our spending.
The first step: focus our annual budget on the core classroom and academic experience for all our learners. Every dollar spent on a non-academic service detracts from our mission.
The second step: solve our structural deficit. We need to redesign our entire education system to ensure our expenses do not grow faster than our revenues each year.
Strategic Footprint
The district should develop a master facilities plan. We have several sites already in D65 on which we could build modern, vibrant schools s that would draw families from across the district into key “hubs.” This approach also shrinks the $600m in building and maintenance liabilities from our existing skills.
Teachers > Technology
After a decade of experimentation with edtech it’s clear that many of the traditional instructional methods work best. We’ll focus on the curriculum with the best data behind it rather than being beholden to contracts with big tech companies.