As an APS parent, I appreciate how Arlington schools foster well-rounded, thoughtful, and capable students. I also recognize the critical role that the School Board plays in ensuring that decisions balance the complex needs of diverse stakeholders across the APS community.

It is important for decision-making processes to take into account community feedback in a manner that makes people feel heard and respected. I also recognize the need to make decisions that balance trade-offs and do not simply cater to the loudest voice in the room.

Many challenges the school system face such as teacher burnout, being able to provide opportunities for every child, and student safety has been made worse by the pandemic and recent inflation-adjusted budget cuts.

In order to face these new challenges, better processes and tools are needed to support effective engagement with parents, teachers, and members of the community. We also need to focus not only on teacher pay and benefits, but also reduce the amount of non-student facing tasks they have to manage which contribute to teacher burnout.

I am a Director of Software Engineering for a Fortune 25 company, and have decades of experience in building processes and tools that support transparency and understandability in complex systems. I want to bring these problem solving skills to help create effective transparency in the APS and School Board decision making process.

Misuse of new technologies like ChatGPT and AI-generated images and videos have the potential to create challenges for the school community. I will be able to bring my technical expertise to create policies that harness the potential of these new technologies while mitigating the risks of misuse and prioritizing student safety.

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 continue to be outstanding and that every student is given the opportunities and support needed to be successful.