- District 1 Assembly
- Troy Wuyts-Smith
- Barbara 'Wáahlaal Gíidaak Blake
- Paul Kelly
- District 2 Assembly
- Kelly Fishler
- Michelle Bonnet Hale
- Mayor
- Beth Weldon
- School Board
- Kyle Scholl*
- Thom Buzard
- Will Muldoon*
- Ibn Bailey
- Aaron Spratt
- Elizabeth Siddon
- Amber Frommherz
Age
48
Family
Lots of family in Juneau including wife Maria, son, Ezekiel, nephew, parents, brother and sister and their children.
Politically, how do you identify?
Registered Independent
How do you earn a living?
Co-owner of Northern Tea House and Northern Tea Alley.
What are some topics you’re an expert on?
Good communicator, can take complex issues and speak to them in a common way, community service.
Why are you running for office?
Because I have the experience, knowledge and expertise that I believe can be an asset to the board. I bring a political-free voice and opinion, I can work well with the board and help to move forward this strategic plan laid out by the board, which include equity, achievement, partnership and relationships.
Education policy
What’s something in Juneau’s standardized test data that informs an education policy you want to implement or action you want to take?
I would say from the standardized test, I would like to see a more robust effort towards pre-K education that we have to increase our low student achievement rates, our results from the tests for our reading, and, and math comprehension skills. Those are areas that we’re at a critical point in, that we need to work in partnership to increase, resulting in higher graduation rates for our students.
COVID-19
What do you think of how the district has handled COVID-19 in schools so far? Would you like to change anything?
I wouldn’t change a thing that the district has done at this point. I think that they’ve shown with the low COVID rates, that their mandate is following the city, the state, resulting in lower COVID rates for our students. So to continue on with what’s working with the masking. I’m 100% behind the board and their decisions for mitigation.
Working together
What’s your approach for dealing with colleagues you disagree with on a policy matter?
Being able to have conversations and discussions that are data informed to ensure that there’s not that it’s not a personality, conflict, ideology conflict, that we actually are speaking about the issues and making sure that we keep in mind that we’re talking for the betterment the good for our overall student population in our district.
School involvement
What is your relationship to Juneau’s schools? Are you a parent?
I am a parent of students that attend Juneau-Douglas district schools. I’m pretty active following the actions of the school board. So, I have communicated with the superintendent with various board members, about policies or what thoughts are just having general discussions on the direction of our district and also congratulating, taking time opportunities to actually congratulate our administrative staff for the jobs that they’ve been doing for our students throughout this pandemic.
Serving Juneau
Which parts of Juneau do you think are underserved by the school district, and what will you do about it?
And I believe that where we have our special education students and we have our talent enrichment development, or TED students, those two particular groups do have a lot of attention. But, I want to focus on the rest of the students — where we were in terms of equity, and student achievement. Those are two areas that I would like to further address. I think that there’s work to be done.