Elected Experience: New Glarus School Board (2020-2023)

Why should voters elect you?

Voters should elect me because I have been working with state and federal elected officials for about a decade to increase funding and services for children with special needs, child care, and small businesses. I have helped to write legislation and was the first child care business owner to testify before the House Small Business Committee in February of 2023 as a business. I co-founded Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed in 2020, a grassroots community of 2500 child care professionals, business owners, parents, and community members who learned how to advocate, share their story, testify at state committee hearings, speak to media, and become involved in our democracy to advocate for policies that will benefit their communities. I will use those skills as a senator.

What is the top issue in your district? How would you address it?

State level public education funding has reduced to zero increase per pupil for public schools while increasing the amount to private voucher schools. This forces the local property tax base to make up the difference if they can. Children come in with more special needs, complex needs, and the reimbursement from the state is too low so the services provided are inadequate impacting the education of all children. The lack of affordable childcare means that fewer children are being identified and provided services before they enter school, increasing those costs as well. The reimbursement for the technical school courses for apprenticeship and dual credit courses is also about half of what it was promised to be further cutting into school budgets and opportunities for students.

How should Wisconsin government operate differently than in the past?

Wisconsin government should be responsive to their constituents. Our representatives should be talking to one another on both sides of the aisle to come to a consensus on how best to solve the problems faced by Wisconsinites together. Committees should hold hearings on bills that are overwhelmingly supported by their constituents and passed in an efficient manner. An example of this were the postpartum Medicaid expansion bill and Gail’s Law which took almost a decade for them to pass and when they were voted on the floor, they were almost unanimously passed. Another example is the pharmaceutical benefits management bill that has had even more co-sponsors than those two bills, but was never put on the floor for a vote.

What is your favorite fun Wisconsin history fact?

Our state had the very first Kindergarten in Watertown, WI in 1856!