MEL'S PRIORITIES & VALUES
LITERACY
One of my core priorities is literacy: celebrating it, encouraging it, and providing opportunities for improvement. We all know that reaching literacy benchmarks is critical to our students’ future success, and I want our community to embrace books and give kids a reason to love reading. The way we teach kids to read has evolved. When I was in school, it was all about memorizing sight words. Today, we have research-backed methods that work. As a lifelong reader, I know the joy of meeting a new character in a book, and I want every child to experience that.
As a school board member, I will strongly support the Sense of Belonging initiatives to ensure all students feel safe and included. Our students and educators spend seven hours a day, five days a week at school—they deserve to be their true selves and experience a supportive community during that time. When we foster a strong sense of belonging, many of the challenges students face naturally begin to improve.
SENSE OF
BELONGING
COMMUNITY
BUILDING
I’ve always valued community building, connection, and sharing. When I was hired at Marion Polk Food Share, I was told, “We really appreciate your community values and how you see yourself fitting into it. We want you to bring that to Food Share.” That same commitment to community is why I volunteer so much in my kids’ schools – I want every child to feel like they have an adult cheering them on and believing in their success. As a school board member, I will bring that same energy and dedication, doing everything I can to help our students thrive.