List your top three priorities if elected?

If elected, my top three priorities are: first, expanding on-site mental health and early intervention supports so students get help before reaching a crisis point. Second, driving fiscal transparency through resource audits that keep funding centered on classroom tools and competitive educator pay. Third, restoring true community collaboration by giving parents, teachers, and township residents a meaningful voice in district decisions.

What do you see as the most pressing issue currently facing the district? What will be your approach to addressing it?

The most pressing issue facing Franklin Township is that as our community grows, the complex needs of our students are outpacing our current support systems. When you have worked on the frontlines of our schools, you see firsthand that you cannot separate academic success from emotional well-being. To address this, my approach centers on three practical strategies. First, we must expand our on-site mental health infrastructure and early interventions so students get support before they are in crisis. Second, we need rigorous budget transparency by auditing our expenditures to ensure resources are actually reaching the classrooms and the frontline staff who support our kids every day. Finally, we must build true partnerships with parents, local organizations, and businesses, moving beyond just giving district updates to actually solving problems together. By anchoring our decisions in fiscal accountability and whole-child support, we can build a resilient school system for every family.

What area of academics do you think the district needs to focus on and why?

The district needs to expand our definition of academic success beyond a narrow culture of test-prep. While standardized tests and AP courses are vital pathways for many of our students, treating them as the only barometer of success creates a hollow metric that traps classrooms in memorization loops. We need to shift our academic focus toward real-world problem-solving and critical thinking. That means giving our educators the instructional freedom to teach students how to think, not just what to think. By prioritizing genuine capability alongside traditional metrics, whether a student’s next step is a university, a trades apprenticeship, or a career, we ensure they graduate not just with a test score, but with the practical resilience to navigate whatever future they choose.

Affordability and finances are top of mind for districts and voters. What will be your approach to district finances?

My approach to district finances is rooted in absolute transparency, fiscal responsibility, and equity-driven resource allocation. Taxpayers and families deserve to know precisely how their dollars are utilized and whether those investments directly impact student success. To achieve this, my financial strategy focuses on three core pillars: conducting rigorous, open-book audits to eliminate administrative bloat and direct resources to schools based on actual need, actively pursuing state and federal grants alongside smart community partnerships to stretch our budget further, and prioritizing direct classroom impact by protecting frontline educators, keeping class sizes manageable, and investing in sustainable long-term tools rather than short-term fixes. By filtering every budgetary decision through how it supports our students and educators, we can build a fiscally resilient district that honors both our taxpayers and our children.

Franklin Township received a $29.5 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to construct a Health Sciences Academy. While the grant covers the initial implementation and construction, how will you approach the long-term operational budgeting to ensure the academy remains fully funded without diverting resources from existing programs?

While the $29.5 million Lilly Endowment grant provides an incredible foundation for constructing the Health Sciences Academy, relying on one-time funding without a sustainable operational roadmap is a financial trap. We cannot build state-of-the-art facilities at the expense of our most valuable asset: our educators. My approach to long-term operational budgeting for the academy is built on strict fiscal accountability that protects existing classroom resources and educator compensation. First, we must bake recurring state funding streams, such as Career and Technical Education per-pupil weights, directly into the academy’s baseline model to offset ongoing costs. Second, we need to establish formal industry partnerships and equipment-sharing agreements with regional healthcare networks that benefit from this direct talent pipeline, helping subsidize specialized operational expenses. Finally, we must subject non-classroom expenditures to rigorous audits while treating educator compensation as a non-negotiable fixed line item. We cannot celebrate state-of-the-art facilities while failing to properly pay the educators actually running them.