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Last month, U.S. News and World Report magazine ranked Thomas Jefferson High School the best public high school in America. Unfortunately for us, the school referenced is in Alexandria, Virginia and not San Antonio, Texas. My vision for our neighborhood schools is to be the very best by the year 2020. As a third generation SAISD graduate, 1986 graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School and life-long resident of W. Magnolia Avenue, my family and I are deeply concerned with the recent direction of our neighborhood schools. We have witnessed high superintendent and principal turnover, rapidly expanding schools then proposals to close them, teachers and students leaving at alarming rates, traditions lost, campus grounds deteriorating and an overall sentiment that current school performance is at odds with our rising property taxes. I realize the challenges of our public school system are many and multi-faceted; however, my initial focus will be on our own neighborhood schools. Over the next three months I will be laying out the pillars of my “Best Schools 2020” vision: class work-passionate professionals teaching math, science, grammar, art and technology; team work-mandatory extracurricular participation or Jefferson corps of cadets; home work- minimum of 10 hours of home study; civic work – community awareness and service projects; and accountability- measurable performance. My experiences as an educator, urban planner, policy maker (local, state and national level) and business owner give me the range and depth of expertise necessary to combine a strategy of neighborhood revitalization with a bold vision for the transformation of our local schools. The regeneration of our city’s south side is a good example of my ability to conceive, facilitate and implement an audacious, strategic vision. In only six years, more than one billion dollars in private equity has been invested, thousands of new jobs created, three large master planned communities broken ground, a new Texas A&M University campus opened and an unprecedented partnership agreement between three school districts brokered. Strong, proven leadership will be required to see a bold vision to fruition. I was taught at a young age by my parents that leadership is the activity of a lifetime. After losing my first election for student council president at Woodlawn Elementary in 1978, I continued on a journey to serve and revitalize our dear old neighborhood. From class president at Jefferson High School to Jefferson Neighborhood president, from city council to the mayor’s office, I have held firm to the philosophy that “all real change starts in one’s own back yard.” Sincerely,
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