Progress
Equity—Equity is at that the heart of public eductation. Whether our students live in Rockledge, Rydal, or Roslyn, our public schools open their doors to all students regardless of where in the District they live, their family status, or their ability. As Board President, I’m focused on ASD’s obligation to cultivate the potential in every student, helping them thrive intellectually, emotionally, socially.
This past year, nearly 1/3 of our high school students (829) took AP exams, 84% of those students earned a 3 or higher.
In 2025-2026, ASD moved from 14th to 11th among the 21 Montgomery county school districts and is in the top 20% of schools in the Commonwealth.
Middle School Project—While our students’ achievement scores have continued to rebound after COVID and we have increased access to academic excellence, our middle school, more than half a century old, lagged behind.
2024—District engaged in intensive conversation with all members of the Abington/Rockledge community about whether and how they would support an effort to renovate or replace the existing middle school.
January 2025—The School Board voted to put a referendum question before the community: Do you support the District issuing a series of bonds to fund the building of a single, new middle school?
January-May—I worked closely with District leaders to push out factual information to the community and to civic organizations and churches about the condition of the current middle school, the community’s preference for a single, new building, and the cost of such a project as well as the District’s commitment to distribute the bond issuance over three offerings in order to distribute the tax burden.
May 20—The community voted “yes” to approve the new middle school and the planning began.
October—I received an emergency phone call from the District informing me that the MS project had been jeopardized by changes to the 1949 School Code (SB 315 2024-2025) that prohibited districts receiving certain kinds of state funding from seeking “referendum exceptions”—the kind ASD would need to levy the taxes that would fund the bonds for the build.
Because our current state rep. had voted to move the amended school code out of the Appropriations Committee on which he sits as well as voting “yes” to move the Bill out of the General Assembly, we decided our most effective course of action would be to work with our State Senator, Art Haywood.
At my direction, School Board Directors and community members, we reached out to Senator Haywood to intervene. The language of the Bill was clarified so that “electoral debt” is exempt from the provision and the MS project can proceed and the will of the community has been protected.