About Me
My background
Thank you for visiting my website and for considering my candidacy for re-election to the LVUSD School Board.
Advocating for exceptional public education has been a passion of mine since the very beginning of my career in public service. I began working in education policy and government service on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC and as an appointee of the President of the United States fighting for sweeping education policy reforms designed to ensure every child in America had the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential.
After serving two United States Secretaries of Education in Washington, DC, my wife Sarah, a third generation school teacher, and I decided it was time to return home to California and we began looking for a new community to settle into with wonderful families and great schools. We immediately fell in love with Calabasas and the entire Las Virgenes community.
For the past dozen years we have been blessed to call the LVUSD community our home. Our family has grown to three amazing children attending our incredible schools, playing in WAGS and AYSO and Pony baseball. Soon after moving to our community I once again felt the call to service and began talking with fellow LVUSD parents about running for School Board.
As a former Director for the US Department of Education, a former United States Naval Officer and adjunct professor for the USC Annenberg Graduate School and a technology executive in the private sector, I believed I could help our schools, and our students, continue to grow and prosper. I also felt, as a parent of young children, that it was imperative that at least one of our school board members actually have children attending our schools. With these priories in hand, I decided to run for the LVUSD Board of Education.
During my tenure on the School Board I have been a fierce advocate for our parents and our students.
- Ensuring Student Safety: During my term as Board President, I led our district through the aftermath of Parkland and our investment of more than one million dollars in funding for school safety. We can do more and we must remain vigilant.
- Best-in-Class Technology: As a tech industry executive, I helped lead a complete overhaul of our technology policy and investments making LVUSD a model in the nation for effective in class integrations of leading tech.
- Keeping Schools Safely Open: During the height of COVID-19, I fought to ensure our District followed the science and the guidance of the CDC and the California Department Health and worked to get our schools open as soon as legally allowed. I opposed the politics of LA County and demanded our kids interests be the only special interest on the table. I am so proud of our work ensuring our elementary schools opened before nearly any other in the region. And when some local leaders tried to play politics with our kids in secondary school, I fought back ensuring our middle and high schools had the fastest and most comprehensive reopening schedule possible.
- Student Mental Health & Closing The Achievement Gap: Many of our students are struggling academically and emotionally today. I have supported historic funding levels for emotional health and counseling services and I have fought hard to ensure we never lose sight of our most at risk students and remain focused on closing the academic achievement gap. We can and must do more.
For the past nine years I have been privileged to serve our community. I have worked during these years as the only current parent on our school board with students attending our schools to ensure the one special interest group that should have the loudest voice - our families - always had a seat at the table defining the future direction of our District.
I would be honored to have your support in November as we continue to ensure every student has the opportunity to achieve their fullest potential.