What inspired you to run?

I grew up here in Coppell, went through the Coppell schools, but also moved away to Canada and came back. I saw underperforming education when I went away, and then I came back to a great system, and also great teachers who identified that I had some gaps, and they helped me along the way.

My wife and my family had been in public education. My mom worked at Coppell High School for a while as a special education aid, and then my wife ended up teaching at Mockingbird Elementary School. My wife was working hard and really investing in their kids to the point where, fast forward, we’re going to their weddings and their sporting events.

I saw that, and then I went to business school. When I was there, I took a class on education reform, and it was eye-opening. The public school system across the country was struggling quite a bit, so seeing that public education overall was challenged. My background is an initial engineer; it is all about optimization and improvement, trying to drive change. I just thought, ‘Man, I think I can do something to help, and I want to find a way to have a positive impact on public education.’ 

I ended up talking to a lot of friends over time, and then I learned about the board and governance, and I thought that this could be a good place to plug in. Unless you can be a teacher or an administrator, what’s like the next best place to really have an impact? I thought the board would be a great place. I look at the challenges we have now, and I care very deeply about this district. 
I care about the future of this district. I think I can bring value to the board. 

What steps have you taken to campaign, and what are your main objectives

My main goal during the campaign has been to raise awareness about the school board election and my qualifications for the role. We have taken a multi-pronged approach to reach as many community members as possible.

I have used social media as a way to reach a broad audience with the early focus on helping people to get to know me better. Over time we have used this platform as a way to provide updates as well as raise awareness about key things going on in the community. 

We have also placed yard signs and large signs throughout the community to increase name recognition because we know that these get seen on a fairly regular basis. We do not want to just get name recognition, but we also want people to understand my passion for education and my qualifications for being a school board trustee. 

We have made a focused effort to distribute as many materials about my educational and professional background as well as my involvement in districtwide committees. We have done this with handouts as well as door hangers. Making connections is always critical so we have hosted several meet and greets as well as I have done several one on ones with people throughout the community. Overall, having a passionate team behind me has allowed us to take different tactics to try to raise awareness and get more people out to vote.

What qualities of CISD motivated you to run for school board?

I have always felt that Coppell ISD has a small town feel. I see that playing out because a lot of people that are in school will come back, get married, and have kids. You don’t see that as much, where people take that much pride in their hometown and their home school.

I look at the high school and see the things that kids do now, compared to what I was doing. The options available are amazing. I think there’s a lot of great stuff going on, but I don’t know if everybody out in the world knows about it. They should be banging down our door and be like, ‘I got to get to Coppell.’ It is not just academic success; we’re good there, but it goes well beyond the classroom.

What is your favorite part about CISD?

My kids are at Lakeside Elementary School, and I’ve gone on a Learning Walk across the other nine elementary campuses. What it allowed me to see is what makes each one special. What I came away from that feeling was, ‘Wow, I knew my school was good, but this one’s good in a different way.’ They all serve a unique purpose and have something special. Anybody who lives in this district or in the open enrollment zones, there’s a school for you. You’ve got to find it. 

From the very beginning, there are so many options at an elementary level that kids can really find their place and then navigate the waters all the way up. Hopefully, when they leave, they’re like, ‘I love this.’ I think we have the foundation that gets us there.

If any, what concerns do you have about the district?

We have had some financial challenges. The last couple of years, we’ve faced some pretty big deficits. The CISD Board of Trustees has actually made a lot of progress. I’m a finance guy. That’s my background, and I think they’re doing awesome. 

Now the other side of that coin is it’s going to feel and look different for a lot of teachers and kids. How do we delicately and thoughtfully navigate that, so that teachers know, ‘hey, we’re supporting you’? We have tough calls we have to make because we have financial challenges, but we support you. I think we can figure out how to do both, make those tough calls and support teachers. And if the teachers feel supported, I believe that their attitudes and their feelings towards it will permeate the students. 
Because it’s kind of like in a business where you have to make a tough call, and someone’s like, I get it. We just have to be very thoughtful. There’s just so much change happening between Pinkerton closing and then the DLI moving to Denton Creek from Wilson, and then almost closing a school. They may not be hitting the headlines, like we’re closing schools, but it’s going to impact something. 

The other concern is enrollment. We have projections, and they do show a decline quite a bit over time. I say that in the sense that a lot of kids in the district don’t go to Coppell schools, so coming back to my point about the 10 unique elementary schools, if they look at those and go, ‘Oh, there is a place for me, I want to go there.’ And then, can we keep them in the district? With the open enrollment, the district actually expanded it quite a bit.

If we can educate people in the open enrollment zones about the opportunity, there’s another opportunity to get more kids in the district. I think what they’re doing with the open enrollment is really trying to keep it pretty close to our schools. Realistically, if a parent were eight miles away, they may not do it, but if you’re a mile and a half, two miles away, and you’re sitting in Irving, I think there are challenges with enrollment. We need to figure out what we can do to combat that.

How do you plan on addressing these issues as a trustee?

I think bringing parents to really get involved on the marketing side because we’ve got Cowboys United going. 
How do we know it’s a success or not? And then how do we keep that momentum going? Those are the kind of questions we can ask. I think seeing that we’re doing everything we can to get that momentum right and educate people.

There’s a pretty good amount of parents who are choosing these alternatives, and we need to be able to provide an alternative that they want. I think getting that feedback, taking it, putting it into action in terms of what we’re actually going to do to make it happen, and starting that process to get parents more options. 


On the open enrollment side, it’s really making sure that we as a district and as a community are making sure that those who are eligible for it understand what they’re eligible for.
 I think those things in combination can all help bring kids back.

What will your leadership bring to the district?

I was an engineer, an MBA, and I’ve done operations. 
My whole career has been tackling challenges. What I bring to the table is having that lived experience of actually tackling problems with empathy, and actually working very closely with both people involved, to figure out what the real pain points are, and what we can do to drive improvement. Coming up with a plan and working hands-on, really, that’s the tricky part about the board, is that we’re not day to day. It’s just a matter of being inquisitive and listening, understanding, seeking to understand the problem and then finding long-term solutions. Not quick fixes, but really questioning and saying, ‘Hey, OK, we can do that, that might be good for a year, but how do we make sure it’s good for probably 10, 20, 30 years from now?’, because you want to do it right the first time. If you do it right, then it’s going to hold up.

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