What I’ll work for

Honor the override, fix the structure

In May 2026, voters approved the largest operating override in state history, raising property taxes about 18 percent over three years to prevent more than 200 layoffs and deep program cuts. That vote was an act of trust.

But the override bought time, not a solution. Health insurance, special education tuition, and negotiated salaries grow 4 to 7 percent a year, while Proposition 2½ caps revenue growth at 2.5 percent plus new construction. The math does not resolve on its own.

If elected, I will:

• Push for public, plain-language reporting each budget season on exactly what the override funds preserved, so voters can see their money at work.
• Insist on honest three-to-five-year projections instead of one-year fixes, with the structural gap stated plainly rather than discovered each February.
• Support serious work on the cost drivers: regional collaboration on special education programming to reduce out-of-district tuition, health insurance strategy with the town, and settlement transparency.
• Treat any future override as something the committee earns the right to request through demonstrated stewardship, with years of public notice, never as the default plan.

Technology that serves learning, not vendors

I’ve spent years inside the ed tech industry, training teachers, evaluating products, and writing two books about it. That experience taught me a simple rule: the question is never whether a technology is impressive, it’s whether it serves learning better than the alternative, at a price the district can defend.

If elected, I will:

• Champion a district-wide AI policy written with educators, students, and parents, covering classroom use, academic integrity, teacher workload tools, and clear disclosure to families when AI is used in any decision affecting a student.
• Push for real student data privacy standards: an inventory of what every contracted tool collects, deletion requirements, and no product in front of kids without a privacy review.
• Bring evidence to screen time. Blanket numbers make headlines, but good policy distinguishes a worksheet on a tablet from a documentary from a video game. I’ll support limits grounded in research and teacher judgment, especially for our youngest students.
• Scrutinize every technology renewal. Contracts that roll over annually without anyone asking whether the tool still earns its line item are where budgets quietly leak.
• Recuse myself, with public disclosure, from any matter touching my own field. My full commitments are on the Transparency page.

Protect and restore what makes these schools worth choosing

Brookline families have absorbed real losses in recent years: world language shelved for kindergarten through fifth grade, educational technology support and library staffing cut, music and enrichment repeatedly at risk. Families chose this town for those programs. The override was supposed to stop the bleeding.

If elected, I will:

• Push for a public restoration roadmap: what comes back, in what order, and what it costs to keep, so signature programs stop living budget cycle to budget cycle.
• Prioritize the programs that research and families consistently tell us matter: world language, libraries and librarians, arts and music, and the conservatory program.
• Protect student-facing staff first in every budget conversation: paraprofessionals, counselors, specialists, and classroom teachers.
• Support our educators through respectful, timely contract negotiations. Retention is cheaper than replacement, in money and in what students lose when good teachers leave.

A committee every family can reach

The School Committee meets Thursday nights on the fifth floor of Town Hall. The people in that room are dedicated, and they are not a sample of this town. Public comment caps at three minutes with sign-up by noon the day before. If that’s the only door in, most of Brookline never walks through it.

If elected, I will:

• Hold regular open hours in every part of town, at libraries, schools, and community spaces, at times working families can actually make.
• Work with community liaisons and translators so language is never the barrier to being heard, building on the district’s ELPAC structures.
• Make sure METCO families have a direct, standing line to the committee, not just a liaison assignment on paper.
• Report back in plain language after major votes: what we decided, why, what it costs, and what comes next.
• Represent the majority of residents who don’t have a child enrolled. You fund most of this budget. You deserve a voice in it.

Issue by issue, in plain language

The four priorities above are the spine. These are the specific questions Brookline families actually ask at doors and pickups — answered directly, with room to learn. If your issue isn’t here, ask me and I’ll add it with an answer.

A note on how I hold positions

Short answers are honest starting points, not endings. On every one of these, my commitment is the same: read the evidence, listen to the people closest to the problem — students, educators, families — say what I think clearly, and change my mind in public when the facts warrant it. I’ve done that in print before. I’ll do it at Town Hall.