Your champion for parental engagement and student success!!!
Our children can be champions!
We have the people. We have the resources. We have the will. What we need is to get everyone on the same page. When I was a band director I worked with kids, parents, teachers, administrators, and government officials from every imaginable background. Whether we were developing a marching band show, a piece of symphonic band music, putting together a musical, playing at a city council meeting, marching in a parade, or simply holding a parent meeting, we all understood what we needed to do. We each brought our own strengths, left our personal agendas and egos at home, and worked together to make things happen. In short, out of chaos we brought harmony. Not a single time did every person agree with every decision we made. However, we all agreed we had to work together, and often come to a compromise, if we were going to do what was best for the students.
We don't have to settle. Our children don't have to settle. We don't have to accept continually dropping test scores. We don't have to accept disruptive, unproductive board meetings. We don't have to accept chaos. We can come together, leave the divisive rhetoric, political agendas, and egos at the door, and work harmoniously to give the students of Spotsylvania County an outstanding education. We owe our kids the same opportunities we were given, and more. I'll not sit by and listen to the endless excuses as to why our kids can't be pushed to their highest potential and greatest successes because of funding issues, staffing issues, or leadership issues. They're counting on us. I'm determined to be part of the solution.
I invite you to join me in this pursuit of excellence for our kids. I believe my teaching success, business success, leadership success, and work ethic are exactly what our school board needs right now. Let's work together, make the hard decisions, and ensure every single Spotsylvania student has every opportunity to reach their highest potential!
A teacher who's walked the walk
Chris was a high school and middle school band and choir director for seven years in two different states. He has walked in the shoes of teachers and knows how to support them in their goals to develop our students. He knows that a teacher's greatest asset is a positive relationship with a student's parents. These partnerships must be established and fostered for the benefit of all students. As a band director Chris not only worked with parents but was also responsible for the operation of booster groups that required constant communication with parents in raising money for students and supporting their activities. Teachers and parents working together is the winning formula for student success!
Proven business experience
Chris has managed multi-million dollar retail businesses as well as owning his own small business for the past ten years. Understanding how to create and manage million-dollar budgets is crucial to putting our school board and our students on a path to success. Decisions made concerning finances affect the quality of education our children receive tremendously. As we've recently seen during the budget creation and adoption process, these decisions can be very difficult and can be affected by personal and political bias. We must work to keep politics, personal agendas, and egos out of the process, understand the funding the schools will receive, and make sure every penny of that money is wisely spent.