I believe that leadership is the most important skill you can learn and teach. The role of every successful leader is to mentor those around them. Effective leadership is the solution to every problem we will face.
I am a husband to a very strong and awesome woman, Wendy Shanks. I am a father to four children and have two grandchildren. Our three daughters have all graduated from San Marcos CISD and our son currently attends Miller Middle School.
I served in the Marine Corps Reserve while attending Southwest Texas State University. I then served 8 years active duty with the Coast Guard. After that I went back to Texas State University and received my degree in Computer Information Systems. I took a job with the University and have worked my way up to the Director of Learning Spaces. My team designs, builds, and supports the technology in classrooms on campus. We build classrooms that support in person, hybrid, and online courses. We work with faculty to integrate this technology in all forms of classes with their pedagogy. I have been with the University for almost 20 years.
Most of my adult life, I have worked with children. I have coached youth sports, taught Sunday school, and am a Boy Scout leader.
I love this country and although it is not perfect, the United States is the best place in the world to live.
There is a direct correlation between the success of the school district and the success of the community. If our children are not thriving, our community will not thrive. Our schools are currently below average. Although there has been some improvement over the last couple of years, COVID protocols overshadowed and diminished those improvements. Now is the time to take action to ensure that all students are reaching their full potential.
We need to get our children back on grade level:
- Refocus on academics at all grade levels.
- Recruit and retain quality teachers.
- Improve parent and community involvement in the schools.
We need to improve graduation rates:
- Look at the who, what, when, why and work with the community to develop strategies to address.
- Create a program with community mentors to guide these students from middle school to graduation.
- Look to the needs of our community in order to guide the CTE program.
We need to be accountable to our community:
- Programs and initiatives should be outcome based. If an initiative is not getting the results we want, then we no longer fund that initiative and try something else.
- Outreach programs should be started with the goal of involving our children at an early age with the community.
- Board Trustees should make themselves available to the community and should invite participation in board meetings.