What I'd Work On
A school board member has a narrow job. You hire and evaluate one employee, the director of schools. You approve a budget. You set policy. You don't run the buildings day to day, and you shouldn't try to.
Our schools are in good shape. This year Johnson City was recognized nationally as a district on the rise, and that didn't happen by accident. So none of what follows is a complaint. These are the three things I'd stand up for to keep a good district good.
01
Protect Real Learning
Every parent knows what's competing for our kids' attention. Phones. Screens. Apps built by people whose whole job is to keep kids scrolling. Our teachers are up against that every single day, and they shouldn't have to fight it alone.
Tennessee now requires phones to be put away during class time, and every district decides for itself how to make that real. I want ours to do it well. Clear expectations, no loopholes, and real backup for every teacher who enforces it, so the rule doesn't become one more thing we ask teachers to handle by themselves.
Artificial intelligence is coming right behind it. Starting with the 2026-27 school year, the state expects districts to teach students how to use and evaluate AI. Done right, our kids learn to use these tools without being used by them. Done wrong, screens quietly replace books and software quietly replaces teaching. That difference gets decided in policy meetings and vendor contracts, which is exactly the board's job. Right now our technology rules live in five separate policies spread across four sections of the manual, and AI doesn't appear in our five year strategic plan at all. I'd pull those policies into one place, get AI into the plan, and read every contract before it touches student data.
I studied computing at ETSU and I read vendor agreements for a living, so I'm not against technology. I'm for reading, for teachers, and for kids who can think for themselves.
Real books. Real teachers. Real learning.
Technology either serves that or it doesn't belong in the classroom.
02
Back Our Teachers
Everything good about Johnson City schools happens because a teacher makes it happen. Our results say our teachers are among the best in Tennessee. The way to keep it that way is simple to say and hard to do: make this the district where great teachers want to come and want to stay.
I've been sitting down with teachers across this district, and what I hear is consistent. They love the work. What wears them down is everything around the work. Paperwork that eats their planning time. Disruptions that eat their teaching time. Decisions that land on their classrooms without anyone asking the people in the room.
Here's what I'd stand for. When a classroom is repeatedly disrupted, the teacher gets backup: real support, real resources, and a real plan, because when one classroom is in chaos, every kid in that room is losing learning time. Protect planning time like the instructional resource it is. And before the board votes on anything that changes how teachers teach, hear from teachers first, out loud, on the record.
Teachers don't need a hero. They need a board member who listens first and has their back. That's a thing I know how to do, because I've spent fifteen years running a business where the people doing the work know more about it than I do.
03
No Kid Learns Hungry
Here's a fact that stopped me cold. We have one of the best school districts in Tennessee, and by the district's own count, about one in four of our students is economically disadvantaged. Excellence and need sit in the same classrooms, every day, all over this city.
1 in 4
Johnson City students are economically disadvantaged, by the district's own count.
A hungry kid can't learn. It doesn't matter how good the teacher is or how strong the curriculum is. And hunger in a school doesn't look like what you'd picture. It looks like a third grader with a stomachache every morning. A kid who melts down before lunch. A teenager who's tired all the time and can't say why.
Our schools and this community are already on this. Teachers and cafeteria staff quietly take care of kids every day, and Second Harvest's backpack program sends food home on weekends with students across our region. The board's job is to back that work up and close the gaps. That means breakfast served in a way kids will actually eat it. It means paperwork-free meals at every school that qualifies for the federal option, so no kid and no parent has to raise a hand and ask. It means a strong, district-wide partnership with the backpack program so weekends are covered wherever they need to be. And it means a meal policy that never, ever singles out a child over money.
This one isn't complicated and it isn't political. In this community, we feed kids. Feeding them isn't something extra we do on top of education. It is education.
Conduct, not a priority
How I'll Do the Job
The three things above are what I'd work on. This is how I'd work. None of it needs a vote, and none of it needs four other people to agree with me. It's just what I'm committing to do if you elect me.
Monthly open office hours. Same time every month, posted in advance, no appointment needed. Come tell me what you're seeing.
A published phone number and email that get answered. Within two business days, every time. If I don't know the answer, I'll tell you that and then go find it.
A plain-English summary after every board meeting. What we voted on, what it means, and what's coming next. Written for people who have jobs and kids and no time to watch a three hour meeting.
Questions asked out loud. If I have a question about something on the agenda, I'll ask it in open session, where you can hear the answer.
My kid goes here. You should be able to find me.
Also on my mind
Our buildings. Federal relief money replaced heating and cooling systems at three of our schools, and that money is gone. Somebody should write down when the big systems will need replacing and what that will cost, and the board should look at that document every year. It's the least exciting thing on this page, and skipping it is how a manageable expense turns into an emergency one.
One more thing. I hire people for a living, and I see what walks in the door. Career and technical education matters here, and the students who take that path deserve the same seriousness we give the ones heading to a four year school.