1.  How many years have you lived in Maine?

I moved to Maine when I was 17.  This fall will be my 8^th year living in Maine.

2.  What experiences, motivations, and leadership styles will make you an effective member of the School Committee?

Quality public education is the difference-maker for our most disadvantaged youth, helping them to gain the skills, knowledge, and opportunities necessary to create their own pathways out of poverty.  As product of a single-parent household, I understood this firsthand when my mother and I became homeless during my senior year of high school.  Without my high school teachers, who stayed after school well into the evening so that I could finish college essays on school computers, or my social workers, who helped place my mother and me into transitional living programs where we stayed for the rest of my senior year, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  This experience gave me the insight to education’s potential to transform our children’s lives, a critical perspective that is needed when considering educational policy and budgets for our schools.

Right now, the School Committee has the opportunity to create discussion that has been needed for a very long time on issues such as educational equity, curriculum, and standards development.  We have a fresh set of School Committee members who have worked very hard to rebuild public trust and to move us in the direction of long-term, strategic planning; we have a new superintendent who has already made inroads in addressing Portland’s greatest challenges, such as the drop-out rate, developing a vision for our schools, and increasing student access to technology.  The next few years will be critical to ensure that our superintendent and School Committee can work with the greater community to implement change.  We need leaders who have deep roots with and connections to diverse stakeholders in our community—from business leaders, elected officials, parents, non-profit organizations, to our youth itself.  As an activist and organizer in Maine with organizations and causes such as Maine People’s Alliance, Opportunity Maine, and The League, my background and professional experience demonstrates ability bring together unlikely allies to work toward common goals.

My leadership style takes a collaborative, open approach that leads to clear direction and a plan for action.  It’s critical to have an open process to receive feedback and input before decisions being made.  Given the prior history of public distrust with the decisions that School Committee and administration made, this level of openness creates more accountability.  It’s also critical that we have leaders who can bring the public in to seek input, feedback, and constructive criticism in order to improve our systems.  In Portland I’ve noticed that we’re never at a loss for new innovative ideas, but we lack the ability as a city to bring our best ideas and solutions forward through successful implementation.

 3.  If elected, what will your top three priorities be?  How do they impact young people in Portland?

My first priority is to ensure all students have the same opportunities available to succeed in our schools.  We currently have one of the highest drop-out rates in the state.  Our school’s technology isn’t where we need it to be for students to enter into the workforce at a competitive advantage.  We have a strong history of bias-based harassment, and we are seeing a growing number of students enter our schools with special needs.  If we want our students to fulfill their potential, we need to meet these challenges by giving students access to greater opportunities to succeed academically and to ensure safe, productive learning environment for all.

My second priority is to strengthen the school committee's and administration's accountability and transparency.  In my work in Portland, I’ve met graduates from Portland Public Schools, advocates from public housing, current and former classroom educators, immigrant and refugee parents and youth, African-Americans families, Asian-American families, and poor white families.  Disadvantaged students currently face the same problems accessing educational equity that their predecessors faced ten years ago.  One factor of the problem is the lack of historical memory of the school’s handling of these issues.  On the reporting side, we lack clear, accurate information to highlight the problems our schools face with graduation rates, drop-out and completion rates, academic performance, or discipline rates.  Comprehensive, accurate data with aggregate breakdowns by race, class, gender, language ability, or free/reduced lunch status would help identify problems, program effectiveness, and allow our administration and staff to focus on solutions. Because we have an incredibly diverse school population, we need to make sure that the programs we have in place are meeting their goals to get students the skills they need to graduate and move onto higher education or a career path.  But in order to do so, we owe it to our community to have all the facts available so that the School Committee and administration can be more effective at understanding how to best leverage our limited resources.

I believe that the Portland school system has done a great job offering a wide variety of opportunities for student engagement and learning:  from expeditionary learning at King Middle School and Casco Bay, to career technology with PATHs and Portland Adult Ed, to more traditional learning environments at Deering and Portland High School.  However, we need to develop more collaborative programs and opportunities for youth outside of school, and to help promote these within the school.  (For example, East Bayside Neighborhood Association is launching a hip-hop, spoken word program with Portland High School youth so that those students have a safe place to go where they can be engaged during after school hours.  Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization just received funds to hire at-risk youth to help with community work and neighborhood projects.)  As a member of the School Committee, my priority would to bring more community partnership and public participation with Portland public schools.  Greater community input and participation would make the school administration and school committee better decision makers.  It would also help maximize our resources as a school system by fully understanding what programs, community groups, and resources exist.

All of these priorities matter to young people, because the challenges our school system face impacts the entire community.  Higher quality public schools would attract more families to settle in Portland, attract more good-paying jobs and economic development, strengthen our neighborhoods—in general, improve the overall quality of life in our city that everyone benefits from.

 4.  Please share one positive change you have seen in our schools and in the School Committee over the last year?

I’m encouraged by the progress that the current School Committee has made to quickly regain public trust and to win approval for moving major reform forward.  We went from having a $2 million dollar deficit within our schools in 2006 to recommending budget to the City Council in 2009 with a negative tax increase for Portland taxpayers.  In the last year, conversation about the schools has shifted from financial mismanagement to creating long-term financial and strategic plans.

Casco Bay High School’s college acceptance rate—93% for it’s first graduating class—is very impressive for four year-old high school.  It gives me great hope that similar achievements in academic success can be made at our other high schools.

5.  Please share one frustrating change you have seen in our schools and in the School Committee over the last year?

One of the most frustrating changes I’ve witnessed is the lack of interest running for School Committee.  Last year, during the most exciting presidential elections we’ve seen in our lifetime, we saw 2 of our School Committee seats filled in by write-in candidates.

6.  What competing responsibilities do you have, both professionally and personally, and how will you juggle those responsibilities?

My professional responsibility is to empower and engage young people to be active, informed citizens and leaders in our community.  This currently takes on two different forms with my work as Field Director of The League of Young Voters and Vice-Chair of the Southern Maine Worker’s Center, a volunteer leadership position that ends December 2009.  I am currently in the process of paring down my volunteer and outside commitments in order to maximize my time more effectively in the community and on the School Committee. 

7.  How will you make Portland schools more effective and cost efficient?

The current School Committee has sought to implement an improved budget process that meets Portland’s educational goals.  What this entails is a thorough review of school spending, increasing our financial knowledge, anticipating budget spending assumptions, and consulting with school administration and city staff to address school spending.  What’s next is to move towards a comprehensive strategic plan that works towards a vision for our schools that is formed by broad stakeholders from our community.  While our schools have set educational goals, without a comprehensive strategic plan or a vision, it would be difficult to make decisions on what programs or budgetary areas to save or to let go.  From my conversations with the superintendent and school committee, I understand that the visioning process that will inform the comprehensive strategic plan will occur in the fall and be finished by this winter. 

Having worked for non-profit organizations over the last four years, I’ve often had to collaborate with other organizations and individuals to share resources and efforts.  My resourcefulness would be a useful skill on the School Committee when finding budget and program efficiencies. 

8.  What is your position on school consolidation? How will you deal with either outcome of the upcoming ballot question concerning school consolidation? 

The statewide school consolidation plan, otherwise known as the “School Administrative Reorganization” law, is an attempt to ensure that school money is spent on classroom education by finding efficiencies by consolidating school administration and school resources like transportation.  Portland isn’t impacted by the plan to consolidate or merge with other districts, unlike our rural neighbors, but Portland is obligated to make reductions in facilities operations, transportation, special education, and system administration.  We are obligated to put our school budget on referendum each year to be approved by voters, which has a cost impact for our city overtime for a relatively small size of voter turnout.

I think that the difficulty surrounding the school consolidation plan is how the efficiencies are based on mandates; the school consolidation plan may have achieved greater buy-in from towns if the state gave incentives to find efficiencies and consolidation as a part of institutional aid for K-12 education. 

9.  What do you think the role of School Committee should be in determining the school budget?  What ways will you improve the process of school budgeting?

The role of the School Committee in formulating the school should remain largely as it is—a combination of collaboration and oversight.  The Superintendent who actually manages the budget and the school department’s resources does—and should—formulate the budget in the greatest detail.  The School Committee’s role is first to assist in the formulation of the budget as the central office team develops it, and then to review the budget in great detail both within the Finance subcommittee and the full School Committee.  In so doing, it is the School Committee’s primary responsibility to ensure that the district’s resources are allocated according the priorities of the city as a whole, and kind of values judgment that should be left to the elected officials that make up the School Committee.

At the same time, the School Committee must also be able to advocate for its budget once it votes to approve it.  The final school budget is not simply up to the School Committee; it is dependent upon both City Council approval and (for at least the next year) voter approval.  Thus it is an absolute necessity that the School Committee communicates the values underlying the budgetary choices that are being made.

10.  With the current reality of the state and city’s school budgets, more cuts seem likely.  What will you cut and why?

Portland is almost in the position to have the data and vision to inform future decisions on programs and educational priorities.  But we still need detailed information on school spending and program effectiveness readily available in a timely fashion.  This information is critical for us to be able to make more informed decisions about the impact cutting certain program, staff, or services would have on the district.  Areas that I would want to look at to help save costs are consolidation of services with the city where possible, facilities analysis, and evaluation of programs.  While I agree that cuts will be likely, I can’t speculate on programs or areas that I’d favor cutting without first analyzing our current financial situation and our potential for maximizing existing revenue.  

12.  How do we increase the number of graduates that go on to pursue post-secondary education?  What benchmarks would inform Portland schools towards reaching these goals?

My priority to expand opportunities for our youth includes increasing the number of graduates that pursue higher education.  My work to help pass Opportunity Maine’s “Jobs Through Education Initiative” speaks to my commitment to making college affordable.  However, in Portland, there’s much more we can do.

In order to increase the amount of college-bound students, we need to ensure students are graduating high school fully prepared.  We can do more to foster an interest and willingness to learn from students, but our schools and educators can’t do it alone.  We need the broader community—beyond parents, teachers, and educators— to support our youth making the choice for college.  We could partner with the community to offer night and weekend workshops for parents, ensure all youth have access to college-prep coursework, and increase college planning and guidance counseling services, and improve access to technology at the high school level.  A concern I’ve heard from educators is that they’re getting high school students who aren’t equipped with the skills they need for their age and grade levels.  We need to strengthen our math and English language programs at an earlier age so they can complete the necessary courses to be successful in college. 

13.  How will you improve the quality of education for students who speak English as a second language?

I have worked with the Multilingual and Multicultural Department of the Portland Schools over the last couple of years to gain more extensive knowledge and insight about how we can help immigrant youth in Portland.  This past spring they launched a program called “Make It Happen” to give young ELL students more support with the help of tutors, mentors, and leadership trainings.  With committed volunteers in the Greater Portland area, they hope to increase the aspirations of ELL students to go onto higher education by the time they leave our Portland Schools.  We need to support these kinds of programs that expose our immigrant youth to leaders, activists, and opportunities outside of the Portland school system.  This kind of encouragement will give our immigrant youth more positive community role models and foster an interest for learning at an earlier age.

Many of educators I’ve spoke to, have cited the need to ensure that there are standards in the curriculum for writing and math skills at the elementary school level. We can also encourage ELL learners to practice their English not just inside the classroom, but outside of the classrooms.  Through technology, we can have programs available so ELL students can have access to software or online programs outside of the classroom.  We can also offer summertime programs so ELL students can continue their education and be ready to catch up to the rest of the students. 

14.  Do you think student transportation needs any changes?  Why or why not?

As a Munjoy Hill resident, sustainable transportation is a critical issue due to limited parking, density, and affordability of alternatives.  For many parents in my district, this issue is about the quality of life that we want our children to grow up with.  We want them to feel comfortable and confident to walk, ride their bikes, or use public transit options.   It’s also a public health issue, with rising rates of childhood obesity not just in Maine but also around the country.

Now that the peninsula transit study has passed the Planning Board and City Council, it’s very appropriate for the schools to keep abreast of citywide changes to improve student transportation.  I would like to see more comprehensive dialogue to reassess student transportation with other groups like the City’s Transportation Committee, service providers like Metro, or advocacy groups like MaST, the Bicycle Coalition of Maine’s “Safe Routes to School” program.  These experts can help guide us to make more affordable, safe, and healthy choices for our kids.

While I was on a tour of East End Community School, it was brought to my attention that the school bus schedule made it difficult for some students who needed the bus to otherwise participate in after-school programs and activities.  I fear that portions of our school population are required to walk for a couple of miles in bad weather due to the lack of affordable transportation options.  Our aim should always be maintaining safe, healthy, and affordable options.  We can’t afford to have our students drop-out due to lack of transportation options to get to school.

15.  Do you have children and where did/do they attend school?

I don’t have any children, but once I’m ready to start a family, I want Portland to be the place where my kids grow up. 

16.  Data shows enrollment is declining in some Portland schools.  Why do you think this is?  What, if anything, should be done about it?

Portland schools have been seeing declining enrollment for some time now.  However, the most recent data from the Facilities Task Force shows that that decline is largely over and that we expect the overall student population to remain roughly constant over the next decade.

There are also unquestionably other factors that are contributing to declining enrollments as well.  Not the least of these is the desire of some families to remove their children from the Portland schools, either for personal reasons or because they no longer believe in the efficacy of the schools.  Our task is to the leverage the advantages that Portland has to make parents want to come to Portland and have their children in our schools.  Parents who want their children to grow up in Maine but also want their children to understand diversity should have their children in our schools.  Parents who want their children to have alternative opportunities like the career programs or the expeditionary learning program at King, Casco Bay and several of our elementary schools.  Parents who want their children be taught by innovative teachers and educators should have their children in our schools.