Together with my colleagues over eight years on D39 boards, we:

• negotiated a fair and much more economically sustainable change in the way that union contracts worked; 

• created the KEEP39 Kindergarten enrichment program; 

• adopted new, growth-oriented metrics to track educational effectiveness; 

• weathered the challenges of the COVID pandemic; 

• when faced with intolerant behavior towards religious and other minorities, formally declared a policy of inclusion; 

• upgraded each of the school buildings including a new science wing in the junior high, new library/multimedia learning centers in every school, and sufficient air conditioning in every school to end heat-related closures;

• moved the district from requiring a tax-raising referendum to maintain its K-4 art and language programs to a financially sound organization that does not anticipate another referendum anytime in its future; and

• performed one of the most consequential actions any Board can: searching for and hiring a new superintendent who has continued D39’s history of excellence and improvement for nearly six years.