Candidate for Kansas State Board of Education - District 5 in 2026 Kansas Primary Election.
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Get StartedI'm running for the State Board of Education because I believe Kansas can and must do better here, especially for the kids in our rural districts. I've spent more than 30 years in classrooms, and a significant part of that time was spent directly on literacy and language instruction — teaching K-12 English language learners, high school literature and English Language Arts, and college-level composition and academic writing. I've also developed curricula, written textbooks, and led teacher trainings. I understand, from direct classroom experience, what separates instruction that actually builds reading skill from instruction that just moves kids through a textbook. Learn more
I also believe parents and grandparents — like me — need to be partners in this effort, not bystanders. Reading and math improvement doesn't happen through state mandates alone; it happens when families, teachers, and schools are working from the same information and the same goals. I want the State Board to support that kind of partnership, not get in the way of it. Learn more
Second, making sure rural districts have access to reading and math specialists, even if that means regional or shared staffing models initially that let smaller districts pool resources. Third, supporting strong, sustained professional development for teachers in evidence-based reading and math instruction, rather than one-off trainings that don't translate into the classroom. These shouldn't be paid for by teachers who already suffer from an institution that doesn't pay them a living wage in many cases. Learn more
As a State Board member, I want to push for a few concrete things. First, real investment in early literacy and early math intervention — catching struggling readers and strugglers with number sense in elementary school, when intervention is most effective, rather than waiting until middle or high school when the gaps are harder to close. Learn more
My priority on the State Board would be pushing legislators in Topeka to fund public education at the level they've already committed to under the State's own mandates — not as a favor to rural Kansas, but as an investment that pays itself back many times over by keeping communities from hollowing out and losing the next generation entirely. I've already had these conversations directly with legislators and other candidates across the political spectrum, and I've found real agreement that education needs to be properly funded, even when there's disagreement about the details of how to get there. Learn more
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