A community college principal recruited me into K-12 to help build her CTE arts program after seeing what I was doing in the classroom. That single conversation set the direction of everything that followed: a career defined not by sector, but by the question of what it takes to build something that actually lasts.
The Central Valley taught me to listen first. In Stockton and Lodi, I integrated CTE arts into schools whose curriculum had never reflected the lives of students in front of me. Then as a principal in West Sacramento, a historically blue-collar neighborhood fiercely guarding its own economic renaissance, I learned that communities don't always need saving. Sometimes they need a school that understands their pride and meets them on their terms.
Later I launched charter schools simultaneously in Roseville and Rancho Cordova, two communities at opposite ends of the cultural and political spectrum. I stood in both rooms and made the case for school on each community's own terms. Not by installing a model. By asking the right questions and staying long enough to hear the answers.
The community tells me what matters. The design makes it real. The story makes it last.
Logan Heights and Barrio Logan shaped me in ways no other community has. Decades of redlining made this one of the few places in San Diego where BIPOC families could own property. Chicano Park rose from that history as the epicenter of the Chicano civil rights movement. And for all of that fierce, beautiful resilience, one inequity persisted: neighborhood kids had no high school of their own. Logan Memorial Educational Campus is a love letter from the district to a community that had been failed by its schools for too long.
Earning trust there took time. It required showing up consistently, listening before speaking, and holding every partner to one question: are you here to serve this community, or simply to take from it? When that trust was extended, families became fierce advocates and community leaders began to co-design the institution. The career-connected learning model we built at LMEC grew entirely from that foundation. Families defined the futures. The community chose the industries. Partners earned their place at the table. Four industry-aligned pathways. Dual-enrollment with UCSD and SDCCD. Ninety-eight percent of students on track for pathway completion.
Today I serve on special assignment at Mission Bay High School, leading a culture shift in the delivery of Specialized Academic Instruction, a crucial component of IEP implementation and the instructional core of the special education program. A different school, a different community. The same commitment.
The force underneath all of this work is love, practiced as care and exercised as stewardship. I never want to work without all three.