Candidate for
Board Member; Gilroy Unified School District

My Family

I was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1950, and grew up there until I left for college. My mother still lives in the same home where we moved when I was age 3, and I have many family and personal ties to the Boston area. I graduated in 1968 from Brookline High School and earned my Bachelor of Arts in 1972 from Barnard College with a double major in government and urban studies. After graduation, I worked for several years at the Children's Hospital in Boston.

In 1975, I met my husband, Marty, who had completed his military service and was finishing up his last year of residency in internal medicine. The time had come for both of us to leave the snow, ice, freezing temperatures and wind chill factors and head for sunny California. Here I have worked with my husband to establish his medical practice and manage his office. We have four sons, and I devoted my life to raising them. This included focusing on their education and becoming an active parent volunteer in their classrooms.

We now have two children on the West Coast and three (we added a daughter-in-law in 2007) living on the East Coast. Dan and his wife, Lisa, are both attorneys in Washington, D.C. Dan, 29, is a 1997 GHS graduate and a 2001 Harvard graduate; he received his law degree in 2005 from the University of Virginia School of Law where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. Joshua, 27, is a 1999 GHS graduate, a 2003 Harvard graduate, and a 2007 graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; he is currently doing a pediatric residency at University of California San Francisco Medical Center. Joe, 25, is a 2001 GHS graduate and a 2005 Harvard graduate; he is currently working in New York City's financial district. David, 20, is a 2006 GHS graduate and is in his third year at UCLA where he is majoring in political science.

My Support for Public School Education

One of the decisions my husband and I made once our children became of school age was to always support public schools and enroll our children in them. For first generation Americans like my husband and myself, there was no American institution more highly valued than the public school system. It provided us with a quality educational experience and opened doors to opportunities that never would have been opened otherwise. In my opinion, the public school system has and always will be one of the institutions that have made this country great.

I was a parent in the Gilroy District from 1986-2006. My children attended Las Animas Elementary School, Rucker Elementary School, South Valley Middle School, Brownell Middle School, and Gilroy High. At these schools I served on school site councils and was an officer on all their parent club boards. I was often asked by the District to serve as the parent representative on many district committees. For years I served as president of the Rucker Theatre Arts Program and volunteered in classrooms for Arts Alive, a program that brings fine arts experience to elementary school children.

No one cheered louder that I did for this District's accomplishments, but I was dismayed with the low levels of student achievement in the Gilroy District and parents' loss of confidence in the District's ability to provide a quality educational experience. There was a serious disconnection between parents' expectations of a public school system and what was being delivered. The loss of Gilroy students to the private school system and other public schools represented lack of support and distrust in our schools.

My Focus on Academic Reform

In 1996, I became active in The Alliance For Academic Excellence, an ad hoc organization of parents, teachers, and community members that promoted rigor at Gilroy High School. We made several presentations before the School Board on behalf of academic reform, and my leadership role resulted in many positive changes, including the reinstitution of an Honors Program at Gilroy High School and the adoption of a new language arts curriculum. In January 2003, I co-authored and presented to the School Board The Alliance's Position Paper.

The School Board's response to The Alliance's issues was disappointing, and I was urged to seek a seat on the Board. In 2004, I ran on a platform promoting academic excellence in our classrooms. Since that time, I have worked diligently to improve academic achievement in the Gilroy District.