By cutting wasteful spending, the board can free up money in the budget to prioritize what matters most - great teaching! The budget should prioritize teaching by compensating teachers fairly and providing them with the resources they need. It's a win-win!   

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The board should prioritize its budget to focus on teaching. Since the primary focus of the school district should be educating students, and the principal educators of students are teachers, teachers and their teaching should be prioritized. And wherever possible, the cost of unnecessary bureaucracy should be cut, and those funds should be reallocated to teaching.

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Here's one example of an unnecessary program and a layer of bureaucracy that can be cut immediately. Inexplicably, the board's '23-'24 budget dedicates hundreds of thousands of our hard-earned tax dollars to its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program. (See pages 59-60 of the board's '23-'24 budget). In addition, I suspect the board has wasted several million of our hard-earned tax dollars in lost time and productivity pushing its DEI program on teachers, staff, and students. I say this is inexplicable because DEI programs in schools are generally based on critical race theory, and generally discriminate against teachers and students based on the color of their skin. The discrimination inherent in DEI programs in schools clearly violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and was also clearly illegal under Utah Law prior to the implementation of this budget.  (See Heritage Foundation Article on DEI programs in schools; see also relevant Supreme Court Decision, see also relevant Utah Law). This is an example of a bloated bureaucracy that is prioritizing a woke activist program over the actual teaching of students and student success. Students and teachers don't need an illegal DEI program that treats them differently based on the color of their skin. (See Student Educational Equity (SEE) Document, which has a 'Vision for Learning' which separates students in the district based on, among other things, their perceived racial background, and aspires to 'equity' not just in opportunity, but also in 'achievement'). Instead, students and teachers need to be treated equally, regardless of the color of their skin. The only race the school district should be focused on is the human race. I agree with Ben Carson where he noted in his article on the racist shift from equality to equity that "[T]here has been a subtle shift in the conversation: Its focus has moved from equality to equity. That is, instead of pursuing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideal of judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, equity would reward and punish people because of the color of their skin. Rather than equality of opportunity, equity would mandate equality of outcome. This goal is not only un-American — it is impossible to attain."

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In addition to this DEI program, which should be cut immediately, I am confident that the board currently has other unnecessary programs and corresponding bureaucracy that can be gradually cut in an orderly manner over time, mostly through attrition and retirements. And as the programs and bureaucracy component of the budget is gradually scaled down to a more reasonable level, those dollars in the budget currently going to that component can be gradually shifted over to support teachers and teaching resources.   

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The vast majority of Alpine School Districts' billion-dollar budget should be allocated to teacher compensation and teaching resources, because quality teaching, and not unnecessary programs and bureaucracy, is what contributes the most to student success. 

 
MY PROMISE - If elected, I will vote to eliminate the DEI program at Alpine School District. I will also vote to gradually scale down any other unnecessary programs and bureaucracy in the budget and shift those dollars over to support teachers and teaching resources.