Board members are elected to provide independent oversight, ask hard questions, and make sure major decisions are supported by evidence.

When the public is being asked to trust major spending decisions, long-term projects, or changes that affect students and families, that trust has to be earned. Transparency means more than publishing documents. It means making sure the community can understand how decisions were reached, what assumptions were used, and whether the promised results were delivered.

As a board member I will examine the evidence behind major decisions, follow up when answers are incomplete, and ask for independent review when the public deserves greater clarity. I will not assume that a recommendation is correct simply because it comes from inside the district.

IEPs and 504 plans aren't special favors or optional bonuses. They are legal rights that make sure students with disabilities get a fair shot at a great education.

Our goal should be simple: catch needs early, provide the right support immediately, and fix issues before they turn into exhausting legal battles.

I navigated my own school years with an IEP. Years later, I found myself sitting on the other side of the table, fighting for the IEP and 504 plans my own children need.

I know firsthand how life-changing the right support can be. But I also know how completely exhausting it is to constantly argue with the district just to get the school to follow a plan that's already signed and on paper.

When schools let these problems drag out, everyone loses. Kids fall behind in class, parents lose trust in the system, and stressed-out teachers end up stuck managing conflicts. When problems turn into avoidable legal disputes, money gets spent fighting instead of helping kids.

A signed document doesn't help a child if it sits in a folder. As a board member, I will hold AUSD accountable and demand to see exactly how they monitor whether IEP and 504 services are actually being delivered every day.

If a service is missing, parents need a clear, direct path to get it fixed immediately. You shouldn't have to hire a lawyer or file a formal complaint just to get a call back.

I will also push the district to track recurring issues across different campuses. If multiple schools are failing to provide the same accommodation, it's a system problem that needs a district-wide fix.

Policies look great on paper, but the real test is whether your child can enter a classroom, participate fully, and thrive.

Parents and caregivers know their children. Students experience school every day. Educators and staff know what it takes to help them learn.

All deserve a voice in the questions we ask, the options we consider, and the decisions we make.

You shouldn't have to sit through hours of meetings or read long reports to understand what is happening at your child’s school.

When you raise a concern, you deserve a real response: what the district knows, what happens next, and who will follow up.

I will meet students, parents and caregivers, educators, and staff at schools and community events, and make it easy to contact me.

Before major decisions, I will push for plain-language explanations and time for the community to help shape the options.

We may not always agree. I will take your concerns seriously and explain how I reached my decision.

I will not vote to close our neighborhood schools to fix a budget shortfall.

A school is part of a neighborhood’s daily life. Keeping schools open should be a priority as we plan the district’s budget.

Closing a school separates classmates and can mean longer trips, more traffic, and harder schedules for parents and caregivers.

Children may lose the chance to walk or bike to school. Parents may have to juggle new childcare arrangements and siblings at different campuses.

Those are real costs, even when they don’t appear in the district’s budget.

I will push for a close review of administrative costs, consultants, contracts, and vacant office positions to identify savings that protect classrooms.

I will ask for clear budget choices and simple ways to share your views before decisions are made.

You shouldn't have to sit through a long board meeting or read a 100-page report to have a say in your child’s school.

This is the only childhood our kids get. Schools should give children time to read, write, question, create, and solve problems.

I support a pause on generative AI in student work and staff lesson planning, and an end to routine personal-screen use in classroom instruction. Learning accommodations, assistive technology, and medical needs must remain protected.

Technology companies should have to earn a place in our classrooms.

Sources & supporting information →

Finishing an assignment isn’t the same as learning.

An AI-generated answer doesn’t show what a student understands. AI can also invent facts and repeat biases.

Educator Normand Baillargeon calls the skills needed to recognize manipulation and think for yourself “intellectual self-defense.” Children need opportunities to build those skills through reading, writing, discussion, and hands-on learning.

Sources & supporting information →

Show us the evidence. Explain the safeguards.

AUSD’s Board Policy 0441 needs clear procedures behind it. Google’s changes to Gemini access show why districts must monitor tools and keep parents and caregivers informed.

Before lifting the pause, AUSD should publicly demonstrate educational benefit, explain privacy protections, and establish how problems will be addressed. The Board should decide through a public, evidence-based vote.

Sources & supporting information →

Give the people affected a real voice.

I will advocate for the pause and the resources teachers need to make these changes.

I support an independent nine-member advisory committee: two students, two parents or caregivers, two educator or staff representatives, and three public-interest experts.

It should meet publicly, disclose conflicts, and publish its own recommendations. The elected Board remains accountable.

Sources & supporting information →

During instructional time, students should be focused on learning. I support keeping phones off and away.

But off and away does not have to mean inaccessible. Whether a classroom uses backpacks, pouches, a phone hotel, or another system, students should be able to take their phones with them when they leave the classroom while continuing to keep them off and away.

I support AUSD’s exceptions for students whose IEPs, 504 Plans, or medical needs require access to a personal device. A phone policy should reduce classroom distractions without interfering with the individual supports students need to participate safely and successfully at school.

Lockdowns and other school emergencies are a reality. A student who happens to be outside the classroom when an emergency begins should not be unnecessarily separated from a means of communication.

Taking a phone out of the classroom comes with responsibility. Leaving class is not an opportunity to text, scroll social media, or play games. Students who violate the rules should face appropriate consequences.

We can give teachers the distraction-free classrooms they need while giving students reasonable access to their phones when safety matters.

Before same-sex marriage was legally recognized, my mother, who is bisexual, and her lesbian partner exchanged rings and considered themselves married.

I grew up marching alongside them during a time when LGBTQIA+ people faced far more open public hostility. I remember people spitting on them, screaming at them, and calling them the most derogatory slurs. I watched them keep marching and keep speaking out.

They taught me something I have carried with me ever since: advocacy isn’t just expressing support when it is safe or popular. It means standing up for people even when doing so comes at a personal cost.

Today, that history continues in my own family. I am bisexual. I am the mother of a nonbinary AUSD graduate who had an IEP and a transgender current AUSD student who has a 504 Plan.

I have seen firsthand how the policies and practices of a school district can affect a student’s safety, dignity, privacy, and ability to learn.

That’s why I believe AUSD must be unequivocal: discrimination, harassment, bullying, and targeted slurs based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression are not acceptable in our schools.

LGBTQIA+ people are our students, parents, teachers, staff members, neighbors, friends, and families. They are part of Alameda.

Not every incident requires the same response. Age, circumstances, severity, and whether the behavior is repeated all matter.

Sometimes the right response includes education and an opportunity to correct behavior. More serious or repeated conduct may require stronger intervention. But there should never be confusion about the standard itself.

We can respond to students as individuals without making excuses for discrimination.

Students need clear and accessible ways to report what happened. Staff need the training and procedures to respond consistently. Incidents must be documented and followed up on while protecting student privacy.

The Board should receive enough privacy-protected information to ask an important question: Are our policies actually working for students in their daily lives?

A policy that looks good on paper isn’t enough if a student is afraid to report what happened, doesn’t believe anyone will do anything about it, or continues facing the same behavior afterward.

I learned that as a child marching beside my parents. I’ve lived it as a bisexual woman. And I understand the stakes in an entirely different way as the mother of LGBTQIA+ children.

Arts education should be part of an equitable education, not an opportunity determined by which AUSD school a student attends.

I believe equity and accessibility should be built into AUSD’s entire educational plan. We should not have to discover gaps one student, one school, or one complaint at a time. That applies to music and the arts, too.

Equity does not mean every school must have exactly the same program. Different schools and students may need different things. But every student deserves meaningful opportunities to experience music, visual art, theatre, dance, and media arts as part of their education.

We need to understand what students can actually participate in. What is offered at each school, in which grades, and how often? Can students with disabilities fully participate? Are opportunities built into the school day, or do they depend on fundraising and outside programs?

Every student may not choose to become a musician, artist, actor, dancer, or filmmaker. But every student deserves the opportunity to discover whether the arts are where they find their voice.

I will ask what arts opportunities are available at each school, whether students with disabilities can fully participate, and whether access depends on fundraising, volunteers, outside programs, or families paying for enrichment.

Those questions should guide how we plan, support teachers, and use arts funding, including Proposition 28 funds.

I will listen to students, families, educators, and community advocates while examining district records and state data. I will distinguish what the evidence establishes, what people report, and what still needs clarification.

In 2019–20, the California Department of Education identified AUSD for significant disproportionality involving African American students and certain special-education classifications.

This was not based on one incident or one year of data. Significant disproportionality requires the same racial disparity to appear for three consecutive years.

As a result, AUSD was required to create corrective plans, review its policies and practices, monitor progress, and reserve 15 percent of specified federal special-education funding for Comprehensive Coordinated Early Intervening Services, known as CCEIS.

The state required AUSD to act because the district had not corrected the pattern on its own.

An institution’s culture is revealed not only by what individuals believe, but by what the system repeatedly permits.

AUSD’s documented, multi-year disproportionality shows that its systems allowed biased judgments and unequal outcomes affecting Black students to persist.

Students were referred, evaluated, classified, supported, and educated through district practices involving professional judgment and human decisions.

Some employees may have recognized and resisted the pattern. But the institution as a whole failed to prevent or correct it before state action became necessary.

That does not mean every educator intended to discriminate. It means AUSD’s culture and systems permitted a harmful racial pattern to continue.

Shamar Edwards, AUSD’s former Senior Director of Equity and African-American, Black, and Multi-Ethnic Achievement, explained the challenge directly:

“The state CCEIS mandate started this work, but I hope we’ll internalize this work, and it comes to be seen as best practice.”

Her words distinguish compliance from commitment. The state could require AUSD to create a plan and redirect funding. It could not guarantee that the district would make the work part of its permanent culture.

The people entrusted with carrying out the work may be deeply committed to its success. But the Board and superintendent are responsible for ensuring that equity becomes an institutional expectation rather than work sustained by a few committed individuals.

The mandate started the work. Governing leadership was responsible for making sure it continued.

AUSD’s public significant-disproportionality page still centers on plans and deadlines from 2020. It says progress would be monitored, but it does not clearly tell families what happened next.

The public should not have to search years of Board records or navigate an outside state database to answer basic questions:

• • Did the disparity decline?
• • Did AUSD exit significant-disproportionality status?
• • What referral, assessment, and intervention practices changed?
• • What did AUSD learn from its root-cause review?
• • What safeguards now prevent the pattern from returning?
• • Who currently holds senior responsibility for this work?

If AUSD monitored the results, the public should be able to see them.

Shamar Edwards left AUSD in 2026. The Office of Equity page now identifies Shanti Croom as its coordinator and primary contact, while AUSD’s Leadership Team page still lists Edwards as the district’s Senior Director.

The public website does not clearly identify an interim leader, permanent successor, or current senior official responsible for the district’s significant-disproportionality work.

That does not mean the work has stopped. It means the public cannot readily determine who owns it, how progress is being measured, or who must answer for the results.

A responsibility this important should not disappear into an outdated directory.

ACCESS means examining the entire system that shapes a student’s education. It means questioning accepted practices, listening to affected families, measuring unequal outcomes, and acting before the state forces the district to respond.

As a Board member, I will ask what changed, what the evidence shows, who is accountable, and how the district will prevent the same pattern from returning.

Compliance means completing the required plan. Commitment means making the results public, continuing the work after the mandate ends, and changing the culture that allowed the harm to occur.

Black students should not have to experience years of unequal outcomes before AUSD decides equity is urgent.

Are students across AUSD getting meaningful opportunities to participate in the arts?

Alameda arts advocate Katherine Park raised questions with me about access to music and arts across our schools. She also brought Create CA’s research and resources to my attention. Her work deserves support, and I intend to help move it forward.

This is what listening to community voices should lead to: asking questions, examining records, and understanding where action is needed.

I’m beginning a school-by-school look at music, visual art, theatre, dance, and media arts across AUSD.

Different programs are not automatically evidence of inequity. The question is whether every student has meaningful opportunities, and whether differences leave some students without them.

I also want to understand how Proposition 28 funding connects to those opportunities.

• How much funding was allocated to each school?
• What was spent, what remains unspent, and what is planned?
• What instruction, staffing, or programs did the funding support?
• Did it expand opportunities beyond what was already available?
• Which students gained access?

Spending money is one part of the picture. What students gained from that spending is the question we need to answer.

Create CA’s resources will help guide the questions. AUSD records and state data will provide evidence about local programs and spending. Experiences shared by students, families, and educators will help identify questions those records may not answer.

I’ll distinguish what the records establish, what community members report, and what still needs clarification.

This review is beginning. I have not yet completed a districtwide comparison or reached findings about school-by-school arts access.

As I review the evidence, I’ll share what I learn here, including gaps in the information and questions that need follow-up.

The goal is an educational plan that builds opportunity into the whole system, so families do not have to uncover gaps one school or one complaint at a time.

Reading on paper and screens: Delgado and colleagues (2018) ↗
A meta-analysis found a small average comprehension advantage for paper, especially for informational texts and under time pressure. It does not establish that every screen activity is harmful.

Excessive screen time and child development (2023 review) ↗
Reviews concerns about excessive exposure, media multitasking, and development. It also discusses benefits of some uses. This is background evidence, not a trial of a school screen ban.

The PANIC study: screen time and cognition (2026) ↗
This eight-year observational study found an association between greater reported screen time and better overall cognitive performance. It did not establish causation or directly test critical thinking. This finding is included because the evidence is mixed.

Normand Baillargeon: A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense ↗
The publisher describes Baillargeon’s work on evaluating information and recognizing manipulation. It informs the intellectual self-defense principle; it is not an experimental study of classroom AI.

Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning (2025) ↗
In a high-school math experiment, general-purpose AI assistance improved practice performance but reduced subsequent unaided exam performance. A safeguarded tutor showed no statistically detectable difference from the no-AI group on that exam. The study examined short-term learning in one setting.

Patricia Greenfield: Technology and Informal Education (2009) ↗
This research-based perspective discusses differences between visual skills and reflective thought. It recommends a balanced media diet with ample reading and reflection; it is not a modern classroom screen-ban trial.

AI-assisted lesson preparation: EEF trial ↗
Teachers using ChatGPT with guidance spent less time preparing selected science lessons, with no apparent reduction in reviewed resource quality. The trial did not establish improved student learning. It is relevant evidence when examining staff use.

AUSD AI implementation presentation ↗
District agenda materials concerning AI implementation. These document the district’s approach, rather than independently establish learning benefits.

AUSD review of Board Policy 0441 ↗
District agenda materials concerning its AI policy. Read alongside implementation procedures and subsequent Board actions.

AUSD online applications and student privacy ↗
District information about online applications and student privacy.

Common Sense Media: Google’s Gemini changes ↗
Reporting and analysis of a default-on change affecting schools that had already enabled certain Gemini services. It supports questions about vendor changes and school notice; it does not establish that the same change occurred in AUSD.

Education Week: schools and Gemini access ↗
Additional reporting linked from the campaign’s earlier position page. Access may require a subscription.

Google: communicating with parents and guardians ↗
Google’s guidance on service access, communication, and consent. This is the vendor’s description of its arrangements, not an independent evaluation of educational value.

The moratorium, restrictions on routine personal-screen instruction, and nine-member independent advisory committee are my policy proposals. The committee’s size, membership, and independence provisions are recommendations for AUSD, not conclusions dictated by a research study.

The evidence above would inform public review. Any decision to permit use should identify its educational purpose, supporting evidence, safeguards, and conditions for reconsideration.