MY BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE 

I have the experience to be your next school board member and to thoughtfully lead our schools during these difficult times.

For the past 24 years, I lived in El Dorado County where my 5 children attended local schools.  I experienced our local schools as a parent of both a special needs student and an advanced placement college bound student.

I learned from my kids that there are many paths to a good place in life.  My youngest child graduated from high school in 2018 and is a Junior at U.C.L.A.  Two of my other children are college graduates; one is a paramedic and the other works for the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Another child works designing doors and is starting a custom furniture business.  My oldest child is a graphic artist.

Through my professional experience as an attorney over the past 30 years, I worked with children experiencing abuse, neglect, truancy and delinquency in juvenile court. I am currently a Senior Deputy County Counsel and have been a certified specialist in Juvenile Law since 2006.

I would like to address the current needs of children in the district and the supports available to them. I have ideas to help families during the coronavirus pandemic with mentoring and tutoring by older students through video conferencing. 

I see areas to improve our schools. I will make our schools more responsive to meeting all students’ needs across the learning spectrum. I will implement better screening programs to identify and support at risk pre-teens early so that they can experience more positive outcomes in high school.  I will enhance interfacing between elementary schools and services to support students experiencing abuse and neglect and those living in foster care.

I want to understand your concerns and work collaboratively to achieve even greater excellence throughout Buckeye Union School District. With your support on November 3, we can navigate our schools through these challenging times together.

I want to understand your concerns and work collaboratively to achieve even greater excellence throughout Buckeye Union School District. With your support on November 3, we can navigate our schools through these challenging times together.


CHANGE IS NEEDED

I attended the August 19 Buckeye Union School District board meeting via Zoom.  I was extremely concerned to witness a unanimous Board approve both pay raises and contract extensions for the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent, while simultaneously reporting a 2 million dollar shortfall in this year’s District budget.  Not a single question was asked by any current board member about the fiscal responsibility of doing this nor the impact this might have on the teachers, staff and families in the District who may experience layoffs or other budget cuts to make up for this shortfall.  

As an attorney who has spent 22 of my 30 year career working for governmental entities, I have experienced first hand that administration takes pay cuts to retain staff and does not receive pay raises during economic crises.  We need a change on the Buckeye Union School Board and board members willing to ask tough questions and provide needed oversight.  If elected I will be that board member.

• Loving husband and parent of two girls in the district.
• School Site Council at two schools in the district over the last six years.
• 21 years of corporate learning experience - instructional design, classroom delivery, and learning implementation.
• Charitable to schools through volunteering, chaperoning field trips and financial contributions to PTO’ and schools.
• Active volunteer in the community through Little League and Past President of Foothill Girls Softball League

As a member of a bi-racial minority family, I'll bring a unique perspective and representation into the board room.

My professional background is in technology marketing and entrepreneurship. Our family legacy is one of service. My father is a veteran and retired nurse. My father in law served in three wars and finished his career as a Chicago police detective. We have several family members who have served in medicine, fire departments and the military. We respect and appreciate all the public servants in our town. We like to serve our community and model participatory citizenship for our boys. 

Community Service Exerience

• Rescue Union School District LCAP Parent Advisory Committee Member
• El Dorado County SELPA's Community Advisory Committee, facilitated a well attended parent training
• Host family for Rescue Union School District's Chinese exchange student program
• George Hall Elementary school site council member
• Blue Heart International, helped a home makeover for a sex trafficking survivor
• Wrightslaw special education law and advocacy training
• Analytics chair for Women In Consulting
• Adjunct Instructor at UC Berkeley Extension  
• Mentor at Hult International Business School
• Taproot foundation service projects: Curry Senior Center in San Francisco, The Wellness Community (Cancer Support) in Walnut Creek
• Mediator for the Palo Alo City Mediator Program
• YMCA before/after school staff
• Americorps, served full time for one year as an elementary school facilitator 

Qualifications

• Planned and managed large corporate budgets
• Worked with diverse team members from around the world
• Managed cross functional stakeholder engagement at a Fortune 500 
• Organized high visibility collaborative events such as a Consumer Electronics Show product launch and a Palo Alto City Art Walk
• Experienced with large scale technology systems: CRMs, CMS's, database integrations, project and portfolio management, and scrum methodology
• Online marketing and measurement

I support diverse perspectives, civic engagement, parent, child and teacher choice. As a board member I will be responsive to staff, caregiver and child requests.

I am the oldest of eight children. I married young and raised three children.  After a divorce, I started work in the entertainment business, watching the attorneys I worked with and realized I could do that work, so I went to law school at night while working full-time.  After passing the bar, I remarried and started a tiny law practice just as the 1994 earthquake hit, and by luck had some of the first resulting cases, which kept me going for 10 years.  In 2001, my husband was about ready to retire, so we moved to El Dorado Hills to be near our grandchildren and my new job in a Folsom law firm.  I retired 10 years later to spend more time with my husband, who, unfortunately passed away the next year.  I have split my time with my grandchildren, and a couple great children, working part time from my home office and some traveling.   

I was raised by a Catholic mother and an agnostic Jewish father.  My father and his family were refugees from Russia who truly appreciated being in America and becoming citizens.  I was raised a Catholic and was educated in Catholic school where we were taught the importance of caring for the poor and marginalized.  That philosophy stuck, and I realized that it was the democratic party that most closely matched the principles I believed in, and, despite being disappointed with the behavior of some politicians in the Party, I have never regretted my decision.  I believe that the job of government is to support the welfare of all the people.  That means the government needs to support and be guided by health experts, climate science. I firmly believe that we must all have empathy for the downtrodden, the ill, the poor and those on the margins.