Why I’m Running

The day I started working on this website was February 2, 2026 — Groundhog day. I am sure the memory of the winter storm has faded, but this was the Monday following a full week of school closures after a pretty severe winter storm. The storm was on Sunday, Jan 25th, and it dumped the equivalent of 20 inches of snow in a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain, creating a thick layer of “snowcrete.” It was hard to deal with. Naturally, businesses were open by Wednesday. Schools continued to be closed all week — daycares opened Wednesday or Thursday. Over the weekend, parks and rec classes for the kids were held with no issues. Sunday morning — Feb 1st — the mayor posted an upbeat video about snow removal progress, letting us know they’d tested the school bus routes on Saturday and were targeting the remaining problem areas. I saw front-end loaders filling dump trucks with snowcrete outside the school — sidewalks were completely clear. I was feeling optimistic. Sunday evening, we got a message — school was cancelled again. To add insult to injury, it was another “synchronous” virtual learning day, which meant that older kids got substandard virtual learning and younger kids were just out of luck, and by the way, there aren’t going to be makeup days. Out of the five days they cancelled, only one was a “real” snow day.

But wait, five days? That timeline doesn’t add up — a full week and then another Monday? That’s six days. Well, Monday, January 26th was already scheduled as a day off. And guess what? So was Friday, January 23rd! One of those must be MLK day, though, right? Incorrect! Monday, January 19th was MLK day. Two weeks after returning to school from winter break, we had a three-day weekend, then bizarrely a four-day weekend the next weekend, which turned into an 11-day stretch with no school. In the month of January, kids were in school for a total of 13 days.

This is sounding like I’m just angry about January, in which case I should run for Local Weather God. What can I do as a member of the school board to stop a snowstorm?

I think I was okay with the snow disruptions until that Sunday message. It is hard to deal with snowcrete! It’s frustrating when schools seem like the last priority in terms of getting things running again. It was also a difficult storm with unique challenges. I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the board. With the decision to close again on Monday, though, the pattern was clear. The board has a narrow focus in the scope of their decision-making that doesn’t take into account the full impact of their actions.

You see this in a glaring way with the school schedule and the decisions about snow. The school board thinks only in terms of reducing risk in the operations of the schools without taking into account the cost to families and the broader community. You can see my analysis and deeper dive on the Cost of Time page, but just to summarize: there are between 40 and 50 days off within the school year itself. Many of those are vacation or federal holidays. About half are discretionary. Every day off costs Alexandria families about a million dollars in either childcare costs or lost productivity/time taken off from work. Every parent in Alexandria has experienced this overwhelming “didn’t we just have a day off?” feeling, and it’s because it’s true — literally every other week during the school year has a day off. In addition to the cost of the days themselves, there is the added burden of logistics of arranging for childcare, planning logistics, etc for these days off. This last day off — Feb 2nd — was a million-dollar decision, and they decided that kids somehow couldn’t get to bus stops because not every sidewalk in the city was shoveled.

I want to be on the school board because I want the board to consider the role schools have in the wellness of the entire community and how their decisions impact families. The most important thing we can do to support children and families is give them stability and certainty in education and childcare. I have personal interests and experience in education — I was a high school teacher myself, and taught college and grad school as well. I have an evidence-based policy perspective and I think our schools are generally in great shape. I think the families that send kids to those schools could use better representation on the board. I’ll be that representative.