As the mother of four, with one child in Washoe County schools, I am deeply committed to improving education for my family—and for YOUR Nevada family too.

I have always believed that the key to a child’s success in school is the involvement of his or her parent, grandparent or guardian. That is why an important priority for me has always been improving the opportunity for parental involvement in our schools. I sponsored legislation in 2011 that required school districts to develop plans to better involve parents. I continue to closely monitor these efforts.

WE MADE SOME IMPORTANT STRIDES IN THE LAST SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE:

We increased funding for critical programs to help every child succeed, including full-day kindergarten in all schools, early education, and programs to help early language learners and kids struggling to learn.

We gave our school district the ability to begin to build badly needed schools to reduce overcrowding.

We provided new resources for improved classroom instruction—scholarships for prospective teachers, opportunity for professional development, incentives for teachers to teach in at-risk schools.

THERE IS MUCH MORE WE NEED TO DO:

As a longtime advocate for increasing parental involvement in our schools, I will continue to work to make sure we do all we can to get more parents involved in their children’s education. We must continue to work together to find ways to reduce overcrowding in our schools and individual classrooms.

As we continue to work to bring new businesses and high-paying jobs to northern Nevada, we must make sure we are meeting workforce demands by preparing our students for today’s jobs.