This Q&A is part of Tiger Times Online’s coverage of the 2025 school board election. The election will take place on April 1. For more information, click here.

The following Q&A has been edited for concision and clarity.

• Having served on the school board since 2015, now being the vice-president, what do you plan to continue to bring to the school board if you’re re-elected?

Some things that got me started were a deep concern for fiscal responsibility. In 2015 we were running a negative balance in the ED fund. Today, we are going to have approximately 5.1 million in the working cash fund. We’re building cash reserves, maintaining 10% in those minimum fund balances. Our bond rating just went to an A plus. From a strong financial position, we are able to really guide education. I’ve chaired the Finance Committee. Policy is also very important. I’m constantly looking at, how do we make the schools safer.

• With that extra money, where do you plan to allocate those funds?

Normally, you save working cash for catastrophic situations. That’s very important. As far as allocating funds, I grow concerned in a negotiation year, negotiating with the unions to make sure that we can negotiate salary increases and fund that, because we have two or three year contracts. The ED fund is the biggest driver of funding: teachers, secretaries, staff, and administrators.

• Do you want to increase cash reserves? What are your fiscal allocations?

We try to make sure we meet. I know that the strategic plan asks for us to try to get those fund balances to 20%, but in the face of mandated categoricals from the state being cut, and with the uncertainty of federal funding dollars, we receive about $5 million in federal funding. A million of that comes from the USDA for the food program, and then that additional 4 million, is allocated to serve the underprivileged populations, and some of that goes to Special Ed, trying to make sure that we meet the needs of students.

• How have, and how do you expect, larger political movements to impact the school board?

One of the things that I think people have said is, why is Terri Dalla Riva going to talk to the IASB about a cell phone ban? Why am I talking about later school start times, and it’s because all of our policy is really rooted in law and Illinois school code. I’ve always felt that school boards need to maintain a voice with government, and we do that by joining together with the Association and bringing our concerns to the General Assembly. Our policy is rooted in law in Illinois school code. If we can direct some of that law, it comes back in grants and funding. For example, I started advocating for an early childhood program in Hamel in Midway. This past year, we received a grant, and we have an early childhood pre K program. The population, they don’t want to drive 20 minutes to Edwardsville proper for preschool.

• What are your views on the recent push to change EHS to a 7-period day and changes to the start and end times?

Last year, I wrote a resolution for the IASB, about my advocacy for later school start times. The Academy of Pediatrics, they say that, because of student health, start times should be for high school and middle school students at eight, between eight and 830. We also talked about increasing the to a seven period day. To me, those things are interwoven. I pulled 15 schools in Illinois. I used Adelaide Stevenson High School as a guide. Adelaide Stevenson starts at 830, it ends at 325, there are eight periods. I looked @niche.com, had a list of the top schools in Illinois. As we look forward to that eight period day and implementing a later school start time, we need to be open to flexibility. Everybody has a different schedule. The school district rolled out a survey, so it’s still under discussion. A policy like this wouldn’t be instituted until 26-27. We really have some serious discussions as to, how do we make sure that teachers are on board, and, how do we make that possible? It’s a huge decision. I do think that we’re going to have to go to that seven, or eight period day, with the way the state is changing graduation requirements.

What I’d like to do is see what that survey says, and then kind of work off of what the respondents feel, because we need to listen to what our community is telling us. Once we take those survey results, I’d like to dig a little bit deeper into if we are committed to a later school start time, what does that mean for after school activities? But I noticed that all of these schools so Stevenson ends at 325 Hinsdale central ends at 330 Glenbrook south, 315 Naperville North at 310. Other schools are doing that. The question becomes, how do we tailor it specifically to Edwardsville needs?

• Are you satisfied with the current curriculum offerings in our high school? If not, what changes would you advocate for, and why? Are there specific subjects or skills you feel are lacking?

I’m always in favor of expanding curriculum where we can. We’ve had discussions about creating our own vocational campus, career and technical education. My third daughter is a pilot; she learned to fly in high school. Those career paths that they discover early on, help you find the job in the future. My youngest graduated from nursing school. I had her go to phlebotomy school. Expanding career opportunities is very important, and advanced placement classes as well. We just signed an agreement with Collinsville area Vocational Center.

• How do you plan to help all students become ready for college, careers or other forms of post-secondary success?

I think what you want to also do is look for good quality educators and recruiting good quality educators and retaining those. Dr. Brian Lane talked about that because that is part of the strategic plan.

• What are your views on efforts to replace the current bathrooms near the cafeteria with a single gender-neutral bathroom?

The EHS, Commons is a big project. The bathrooms are a small part of it. Back in 2023 we were hearing concerns about the safety of bathrooms, and so we began to explore alternatives. Now we still have boys bathrooms and girls bathrooms, but this bathroom concept is designed to be a hallway with sinks and wash stands in the middle and then floor to ceiling bathroom stalls on either side. There was a concern for safety of students, and the comments were that people didn’t want to go to the bathroom. They would wait the whole day before they went home. Vaping in that area. With an open concept, the idea is to cut back on vaping. That doesn’t mean this is a perfect system. We try to deal with problems that are huge cultural problems, one of them is the highly addictive nature of nicotine.

• A lot of districts have faced staff shortages. How do you propose District 7 is able to maintain staff and have high quality teachers?

Dr Lane has been focusing upon, how do we create opportunities for our teachers, and how do we create an environment where they feel respected and valued? We recently talked about, how do we get more subs? Can we streamline the application? Is there a better program? The administration just spoke with the teachers union about, can we compensate teachers for their commitment? It gets very, very complicated, but we are looking at a sub shortage still, and a teacher shortage. To teach an AP computer science course, it takes someone that has a master’s degree. How do we attract people, not to go to the private sector? We put that in the hands of Brian Lane, who develops a program of teacher recruitment. They go to various job fairs, they host their own job fair. Making sure we have a competitive salary and competitive benefits package is part of that. It’s a nationwide problem. One of the things that was discussed was the Grow Your Own.

• Are there any specific policies you’d like to discuss?

So the healthy school meals for Illinois Act was passed in 2023 and in during the pandemic, the USDA was funding, fully funding school meals. Now was that a perfect system? No, because there were food shortages, and they you ran out of food, and there were, you know, it was problematic, but it still meant that the goal was for every student have a have lunch at school. And so the state passed this act in 2023 but it was unfunded, and it remains unfunded. And so one of the things that I’ve done was try to talk to various state representatives about getting funding for that, for that act so all of our Illinois children can have a school meal.

• Who do you believe is the school board’s primary constituent? Is it the students, the parents, the teachers, the staff, the community, or someone else?

I think it’s all of them. The thing that motivates me, though, is, how do we deliver education for our students, but we have to do it in the framework of, how do we make sure that we provide a balanced budget. You listen to everybody: the curriculum department, headed by Tara Fox, student board members, the teachers union, the Secretary’s union. 70% of our community don’t have kids in school, but they care deeply about education.

• Give me your final pitch for why people should vote for you.

Funding education is very important to me, and it has been. I’ve got that financial stability. I’ve chaired the Finance Committee. Policy is also very important. Policy 7.1 talks about students not being able to wear or use hate symbols at school. I asked the superintendent to expand policy 77.1 and August 10 of 2021, that policy was enacted. I’m constantly looking at, how do we make the classrooms safer? We’re always looking at what is safe, and how do we enact policy to support that safety, and the academic environment is very important, and how do we expand opportunities for our students extracurriculars? Extracurriculars are essential to good student development. Making sure that those are all well funded is part of that as well.