Vision

I am the product of an outstanding public school system, in my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. I was given the opportunity to learn from incredible teachers, dedicated each and every day to their craft and their mission. Those teachers taught me the importance of hard work, accountability, ethical decision-making, equality and inclusion, standing on the shoulders of giants, creative thinking and problem-solving, and on and on...values and lessons too numerous to account for, but which I use in some form every day.

That is what a high-quality education can provide, and I am proud of mine.

In that same public school system, in the same building as those same outstanding educators who prepared me and many of my peers for a life of success in higher education and beyond, were other students, and other teachers. Some of these students were my friends, others were unknown to me - but they fell through the cracks in the system. Maybe they weren’t labeled early on as “gifted” (I was, in first grade; I took a test and got that label, and before I could consistently dress myself for school, I was put into the track of advanced classes). Maybe they didn’t exhibit the suburban ideals that matched most of my community. Maybe they were out-of-the-box thinkers, or they didn’t look like me, or they made one or two poor decisions early on...I’ve spoken to some of those former classmates in adulthood and they simply experienced a different educational life than I did. I didn’t even realize it at the time. Sure, many of them have achieved successful lives anyway, but they don’t have the same memories of dedicated, world-class teachers that I do. They have memories of struggling and receiving no help, or not being considered and treated as intelligent or capable. Did that make them stronger and more resilient in life? I’m certain that it did. But were they somehow less intelligent, less capable, less hard-working than I was? In almost every case, not in the least.

From the moment my wife and I made Emmaus our home 11 years ago, with our now-12 year old daughter in tow, we have, like so many parents, thought first and foremost about our child’s education: would she have the yellow brick school road paved before her, like I did, or would she have to machete through the jungle of the system just to find a pathway to college, as my wife experienced growing up in rural North Carolina? We did not have family ties to this area, and didn’t know anything about the East Penn district. We determined that we had to find our, and her, own best path.

Our daughter’s first educational destination was Seven Generations Charter School, but after a somewhat tumultuous and disheartening kindergarten year (possibly the worst year of school to be disheartening!), we swung the pendulum the other way and sent her to The Swain School for her 1st grade through 4th grade years. Three heads of school later, we grew disillusioned with that institution and decided that at last, we would simply send her to public school in East Penn. Three successful years later and counting, we don’t regret that decision for a moment (well, maybe a few moments, but nothing is perfect, right?).

I tell our story not to disparage either of the other schools she attended - both of them, like all schools, are filled to the brim with incredible teachers and staff members, people who care about students as though they were their own children, people who wake up every day trying to do the right thing and offer the best educational and learning experiences possible. But our experiences have brought one lesson home to me. Public schools are their communities. Communities are their public schools. Just like the old parenting adage, “you’re only as happy as your least happy child,” a school district must serve all of its students, and families, in order to be truly successful. I believe in educational choice, to a degree, because there is no absolutely one-size-fits-all school or classroom. But communities rise and fall, breathe and thrive, succeed and struggle, alongside the quality of education that their public schools deliver.  

So what is a “high-quality education” anyway? It has been said that today’s school systems are set up to educate the finest students of 100 years ago, and I mostly agree with that. Our world is changing every day, every hour. It has grown increasingly VUCA (vulnerable, uncertain, chaotic, and ambiguous), while at the same time we abound in incredible technological, cultural, and social achievements. The current generation of PreK-12 students, and their younger peers, live in the paradoxical state of being connected to the entire world while being disconnected from its social structures, both like never before in human history. Of course the current COVID pandemic has contributed to this state of affairs, but even as we continue to deal with this virus today, we must begin to look ahead to tomorrow. What will our students’ world, their nation, their community look like in 20 years? In 30? In 50?

The answer, of course, is that we have no idea. People my age thought that we would have jet packs and robot servants by now. Instead we have addictive hand-held objects in our pockets and multiple seasons of The Bachelor (hey, tomato, tomahto). Most of us didn’t think that our constitutional democracy would be as fragile as it’s proven to be, and I think most of us thought that by 2021, we would have made some enlightened progress toward accepting all people for who and what they are, instead of continuing to tilt at windmills and fight the same old battles, futile ones, against difference and change. I would say that we have collectively lost sight of what it means to get things done, to roll up our sleeves and make real, transformative change, to build that yellow brick road one brick at a time. 

But that’s the work of schools, isn’t it? Day by day, teachers and staff and students, showing up, doing the work, trying to build a better society, better humans, better ideas. Building creative and nimble problem-solvers. Building multi-disciplinary thinkers. Building students who learn how to learn, how they learn, and how to become the agents and managers of their own learning for a lifetime. Building people who know how to harness the immense powers of the internet for good, and how to shove the trolls and fake filters and bullies to the side of the road where they belong. Building a freer, fairer, and friendlier world for all. 

That’s why I am running for East Penn School Board in 2021. Because in this district, I see incredible accomplishments happening every day, even in the midst of the ongoing pandemic that has robbed us of our usual ways of educating. I see teachers and staff who truly do their best by their students, and schools with tremendous opportunities to help their students thrive. We do things at a high level here, no doubt - but we can do better. We can always do better. We can do a better job of putting the events of today into context and perspective for our students, showing them that interconnectedness means taking our responsibilities as citizens seriously. We can do a better job of communicating and being a transparent, open, and honest community. We can do a better job of ensuring that all students are recognized and appreciated, and allowed to thrive even if they don’t fit the norm. We can “manage up,” and show our state and federal leaders what a truly great 21st-century school system can look like, and advocate for the resources we need to make that vision a reality. And finally, in the short term, we can lead East Penn toward a post-pandemic world, using this slow-burning, world-changing crisis as an opportunity to remember the true purpose and value of an education, and rethink the ways that we practice it.

It will require patience and cooperation, and I am under no illusion that in the next four years we can accomplish it all, but we must move forward, not as a district, but as a community. 

Students first. Teachers first. Education first. Those will be my guiding principles as I embark on this journey, and I hope to have the honor of being elected to serve.