Last week, the Rockford Education Association and Rockford Educational Support Personnel Association, the local Teachers Unions sent out there questionnaires to the school board candidates. They are going to use the answers to these questionnaires and conduct interviews with us prior to selecting which candidates they will endorse in the election this year.
I’ll save you a long read… I will not be one of those. Neither will other opposition candidates. Why? Because the district and the unions have already selected their candidates. We already saw this in the vacancy process. The MASB, the RPS district, and the teacher unions (the Michigan Education Association and the National Education Association are the state and national affiliates of the REA) have their priorities and they are not necessarily YOUR priorities.
I will let you decide by posting my responses here:
Describe an effective relationship between the board of education and
central office, and between the board and other staff groups.
I believe the board’s relationship with central office works best when both sides understand and respect their distinct roles. The board sets the vision, mission, and strategic direction for the district. The superintendent and administrators then execute that mission. It debates and sets policy. It exercises fiduciary responsibility on behalf of taxpayers and the community. What it does not do is descend into the day-to-day operations of the district — that is the superintendent’s domain.
I believe this current board has allowed that relationship to invert. When committees do the real deliberating in private and the full board exists primarily to ratify conclusions already reached by administration, the board has stopped functioning as an independent check. It has become an extension of the very body it is supposed to oversee. I believe the board must maintain a strong, independent voice — not an adversarial one, but a genuinely independent one.
With respect to teachers and support staff, I want that relationship to be built on genuine engagement. Educators are the people closest to students. Their professional experience and day-to-day observations carry real weight, and I will always make time to hear from them. I also believe in being straightforward when my assessment of an issue differs from theirs. That kind of honest working relationship is more productive than performative agreement.
What does “cooperation with parents” look like to you in practice?
Michigan law is instructive here. MCL 380.10 establishes that it is the natural, fundamental right of parents to direct their children’s education, and that public schools serve students by cooperating with parents — not directing them, not overriding them. Cooperating. I take that language seriously.
In practice, cooperation means parents have real access to what their children are being taught. It means they receive meaningful advance notice when sensitive or controversial topics will be covered in class, not a form letter after the fact. It means that when a child is struggling — academically, socially, or otherwise — the school brings the family in as a partner early, not as a formality once a bureaucratic process is already underway. It means the school does not take deliberate steps to withhold material information from a parent about their own child.
I will also not sidestep the Mead v. Rockford Public Schools litigation currently before this district. Based on the information available in the court filings, if it is proven that the district withheld information from parents or altered records to conceal a student’s social transition without parental knowledge, the district has no defense regardless of how policy is interpreted. That is not a gray area. The Supreme Court’s recent action in Mirabelli v. Bonta — which vacated a stay on an injunction against nearly identical California policies — reinforces that parental notification is constitutionally protected, not a matter of local discretion. If elected, I will push the district to reach a just resolution and to establish clear written policies that protect both families and the district from further exposure.
Outline your budgetary and instructional priorities for RPS as specifically as possible.
My budget guiding principle is straightforward: Focus on needs, not wants. Direct student services come first. Classroom instruction, direct student support staff, and legitimate safety needs are protected before administrative overhead or non-essential spending. The failed $230 million bond proposal illustrated what happens when this discipline breaks down — genuine needs like air conditioning and electronic door locks were buried inside a package the community had no real hand in shaping, the board approved it without meaningful independent scrutiny, and voters rejected it. The students who still lack those upgrades are the ones who paid the price for that failure.
On instruction, Rockford does well on national rankings like US News and World Report, and I am proud of that. But rankings are not the whole story. Our own M-STEP data shows 3rd grade ELA proficiency hovering around 62% in recent years. Third grade is the pivotal year when children shift from learning to read to reading to learn. For a district as advantaged as ours — strong families, strong resources, fewer of the demographic challenges many other communities face — 62% is not good enough. I will give credit where it is due: the district has implemented a Science of Reading curriculum, and it deserves a fair chance to show results. But that does not change the broader pattern. We have spent decades chasing academic reform movements — Whole Language, New Math, Common Core — only to circle back to the fundamentals that have worked for generations. I believe our instructional priorities need to reflect that lesson.
Speaking of circling back to fundamentals, I have made educational technology a specific focus of my campaign. I conducted a community survey — 87 respondents — which found that 59% support prioritizing textbook-based learning over digital instruction, and 91% want devices used minimally or moderately. This aligns with current academic research and with the direction of high-performing educational systems internationally. I am proposing three specific policies: make printed textbooks and teacher-led instruction the primary delivery method across all grades; prohibit routine device issuance for students in third grade and below; and establish a standing Educational Technology Evaluation Committee comprising teachers, parents, and administrators to review research and community concerns on an ongoing basis.
I also strongly support expanding vocational and non-traditional educational pathways. Rockford’s reputation in this area was a meaningful factor in my family’s decision to move here, and it is worth protecting and building on.
What do you believe RPS can do to increase student enrollment?
Enrollment decline is a reality in most Michigan districts, and no board member can simply reverse it by force of will. But I am skeptical of treating demographics as an excuse for everything, because the local data does not fully support that story. U.S. Census Bureau estimates for Rockford show the under-5 population grew from 3,087 to 3,645 between 2020 and 2024 — an 18% increase — while the 5-to-17 population declined by 616 over the same period. The kindergarten pipeline is refilling. That means the enrollment decline we are experiencing is not simply a birth rate problem. It is also a retention problem. Families are here. We are losing them before and during their school years, and that suggests trust, reputation, and the quality of educational experience.
The Parkside closure is a case in point. It was presented as a strategy to repurpose a public school building as a revenue-generating childcare center, with the stated goal of capturing children early in hopes of retaining them through 12th grade. Setting aside whether that model makes sense on paper, the execution was a disaster. It was done without meaningful community input, it blindsided the City Council, and it uprooted dozens of families — including some already on their third school in three years. You do not build enrollment confidence by treating families as a captive market. You build it by earning their trust.
The path forward starts with honest self-assessment. I fully support another opposition candidate’s proposal to conduct exit interviews with families who leave the district and working with the City and Townships to understand the full picture. Beyond that, the answer is straightforward: stop giving families reasons to leave. Transparent governance, genuine community involvement in major decisions, a curriculum parents can access and understand, and continued investment in what makes Rockford genuinely strong — rigorous academics and expanding vocational programming. A district that earns that confidence does not have to worry about where the next student is coming from.
If elected to the board, what are your top 3–4 objectives?
First, restore transparency in board governance. The practice of consequential deliberations happening in private committee meetings — with no public notice, no minutes, and no way for the community to observe or participate — has to change. I will push to open committee meetings to the public, and I will insist that genuine deliberation happens in open session rather than being presented to the public as a done deal. The Open Meetings Act may not technically require it in all cases, but the spirit of representative governance does.
Second, impose real fiscal discipline. That means conducting a transparent, public analysis of RPS spending and outcomes — using peer comparisons as one input, but ultimately measuring whether what we spend is producing real results for students. It means community involvement in major financial decisions well before a board vote — not a survey distributed after the conclusion is already written. And it means I will not vote to put another omnibus bond proposal in front of voters without the community having genuinely shaped it from the start.
Third, restore and protect parental rights. I will push for clear, written district policies on parental notification and curriculum access that are consistent with Michigan law and constitutional standards. This protects families. It also protects the district from the kind of costly, trust-destroying litigation it is currently managing.
Fourth, reform educational technology practices. Implement evidence-based policies that prioritize foundational instruction before device-dependent delivery, and establish the standing community review committee I described above.
Share your perspective on the role of REA and RESPA in influencing school policy and decision making.
I have genuine respect and admiration for Rockford’s teachers and support professionals. I mean that without qualification. The educators in these buildings know things about students and learning that no board member learns from a packet or a meeting. I have never had a poor experience with them as a parent or as a candidate. I will always make time for them, and I will take what they say seriously. I also believe there is a place for an organization to conduct collective bargaining on behalf of their teacher members.
But I would be misleading you if I did not acknowledge the institutional reality of what REA and RESPA represent at the state and national level. The REA affiliates with the Michigan Education Association, which affiliates with the National Education Association. In the 2024 election cycle, the NEA’s political arm raised and spent nearly $27 million — nearly all of it to elect Democratic candidates, including $3 million directly to the Harris presidential campaign.[1] The MEA spends approximately $1 million per election cycle in Michigan, with documented contributions to the Michigan Democratic Party, the Senate Democratic Fund, and the House Democratic Fund.[2] In the 2018 cycle alone, the MEA PAC donated $67,500 to the Michigan Democratic Party, $20,000 to the Michigan Senate Democratic Fund, and $20,000 to the Michigan House Democratic Fund.[3] The MEA’s own internal materials state it plainly: “When our recommended candidates win, we win.”[4]. The NEA spent over $11 million more on political contributions than on representation of its members.
I want to be equally plain about where I stand. I am a conservative. I do not hide that. But a school board seat is a nonpartisan position, and I intend to treat it that way. My obligation as a board member would be to the students, families, and taxpayers of Rockford — not to a union’s political agenda, and not to any conservative political action committee either. I will not be a rubber stamp for any outside organization, regardless of whether I agree with its politics. The moment I would, I would have stopped representing Rockford and started representing someone else.
I will engage with REA and RESPA representatives in good faith on legitimate professional and labor matters. But I will not commit to allowing an organization with those political entanglements to drive district policy. I recognize this answer likely disqualifies me from this endorsement. I am publishing it regardless, because I believe voters should be able to compare what all the candidates say to this question and draw their own conclusions.
[1] “Nearly $27 million” and “$3 million directly to the Harris campaign”
The 74 / OpenSecrets, October 28, 2024: https://www.the74million.org/article/national-education-association-pac-raised-roughly-27-million-for-2024-election/
[2] “Approximately $1 million per election cycle in Michigan”
MEA’s own internal PAC document: https://mea.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/BFCL_Power_Booklet.pdf
[3] Mackinac Center, “Even After Right-to-Work, Unions Still Big Political Spenders in Michigan,” February 6, 2019, https://www.mackinac.org/even-after-right-to-work-unions-still-big-political-spenders-in-michigan-20190206.
[4] MEA.
In the event of significant budget cuts, how would you prioritize resources and make funding decisions while maintaining progress toward RPS’s long-term educational, operational, and facility goals?
The guiding principle is simple: protect what happens in classrooms and with students first. Direct instruction, student support services, and legitimate safety needs are the last things cut. Administrative overhead, consulting expenditures, and non-essential programs absorb reductions before anything that directly affects a student’s day.
Beyond that, budget decisions in a crisis have to be driven by outcomes, not by institutional preservation. The question I will always ask is whether a given expenditure is actually moving the needle for kids. If it is not, it is a candidate for reduction regardless of how long it has been in the budget or how loudly it is defended. Sacred cows are how districts end up cutting teachers while retaining administrators.
I will also insist on genuine community involvement before cuts are finalized. People accept hard decisions when they understand them and had a voice in making them. They do not accept being managed. The bond failure made that clear enough.
On long-term goals: this district cannot currently cover its maintenance obligations, yet the instinct of this administration continues to be expansion. That has to stop. You do not build an addition on a house with a leaking roof. Get the fundamentals right first — maintain what we have, fund what students actually need — and then, and only then, have an honest conversation with the community about what comes next.
CORRECTION – Earlier version of this post contained an incorrect assertion based off a mistaken assumption that member dues are used in political donations. That was incorrect and a keen-eyed facebook commentator pointed that out. I have made that correction herein, publicly posted the mistake on facebook, and informed the local REA RESPA chapter of the error.
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