<![CDATA[Mary Kadera

<![CDATA[Mary Kadera - Blog]]>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 16:24:05 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[why we mustn't miss the point]]>Fri, 16 Jan 2026 14:46:20 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/why-we-mustnt-miss-the-point

This is my last blog post. I am so grateful to those of you who read my writing and shared your questions and reactions over the past five years. I've enjoyed having your company on this journey.

I intentionally waited until after leaving the school board to write this post. I want to be clear that I'm not speaking on behalf of Arlington Public Schools. The views below are mine alone as a private citizen.

In Northern Virginia, the issue of transgender students’ use of restrooms and locker rooms has been complicated by the arrest of an individual who was using aquatics facilities around the region and changing in the women’s locker rooms. This individual happened to identify themselves as a transgender female. It later came to light that the individual in question was a registered sex offender. As soon as Arlington officials learned about this person's criminal record, they barred the individual from accessing their aquatics centers and notified the police.

I was school board chair when this story broke. Some of the local reporting and some of the public comment at our school board meetings broke my heart.

I understand how triggering incidents like this can be for people who have been the victims of sexual abuse, and for their friends and family. I sensed this kind of hurt and upset in some of the reactions to what had happened.

It also broke my heart because in other reactions and reporting, it became a grenade that got lobbed at transgender students and their families.

Inflammatory local media coverage missed the point entirely. The headline became "Transgender policies endanger (cisgender) girls,” when the real story was "Registered sex offenders must be kept away from children". This concern applies in every community, everywhere children gather—parks, playgrounds, athletic fields, libraries, community centers, museums, and schools. In my own community, strengthened security measures now make it more difficult for offenders to gain access to pools, making them safer in this regard than many other public spaces across the country.

This individual’s gender identity is relevant only if you mistakenly believe that most sexual assaults are committed by transgender people, or that it would have been less dangerous for this individual to change in a men’s locker room. Are boys less deserving of protection against sexual predators than girls?

Transgender people use public restrooms and locker rooms every day without incident, respecting both their own privacy and others’.

By conflating this specific and deservedly concerning incident with gender identity, we do great harm. It’s the same kind of faulty thinking and fear-mongering that shows up in claims like “All immigrants are murderers” or “All Muslims are terrorists” or “All conservatives are bigots”. None of these falsehoods helps us understand each other and create stronger communities together.

As someone who has spent her life working in education, I worry a great deal about children who belong to any group that's getting cast as demons or scapegoats. The message those children are likely to internalize is “I am dangerous”, “I am broken”, “I am unlovable” or “I can never belong”.

As adults, we know better. And it’s our duty to do better. If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we love our neighbor’s children as we love our own. We want what is best for all children, to keep them safe, healthy, and happy.

]]><![CDATA[Gender, privacy, and belonging at school]]>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:28:16 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/gender-privacy-and-belonging-at-school

In 2021, as a candidate for my local school board, I started a blog. I continued writing throughout my four-year term, which ended last month. I enjoy writing and believed it was important to share my questions, ideas, and perspectives with the community I was elected to serve.

There are two more blog posts I want to write; the first is below. I intentionally waited until after leaving the school board to write them. This first post addresses transgender students' use of school restrooms and locker rooms. The second will examine how, in Northern Virginia, this issue got conflated with a separate matter in some public discourse and local reporting last year. To avoid perpetuating that mistake, I'm keeping the posts separate.

I want to be clear that I'm not speaking on behalf of the school board or division, especially given the ongoing legal dispute between Arlington Public Schools and the U.S. Department of Education. I won't comment on that active litigation—those seeking information on that case should visit the APS website. The views below are mine alone as a private citizen.

I am a mom, and like other parents I love my children fiercely. Like other parents, I have wanted to do everything in my power to keep them safe, healthy, and happy.

When I was pregnant with my oldest child, a friend shared Anna Quindlen’s beautiful essay “On Being Mom”. Over the years, I have soothed myself more than once by reading this passage:

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.)

My kids have their own litany of my lapses: the things I forgot to do, the (many) times I lost my cool, the succession of strategies I inexpertly applied after reading the parenting self-help books.

Of course these moments matter—but maybe not as much or in the way that we think they do. Our inner monologue says perfect parenting creates perfect children. The most humbling, yet liberating, part of parenting is accepting that we don't have this level of control.

Quindlen writes:

Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.

Sometimes children choose different paths than their parents: a different religion or political party, a career outside the family business, or different cultural traditions. Other times, children are simply born different. Deaf children are born to hearing parents. Prodigies are born to parents with average abilities. Transgender children are born to cisgender parents.

Transgender Youth and Their Families

If you believe that being transgender is a choice, a fad, or an illness, you won’t be interested in anything else I have to say here. I believe that a person’s gender can be different from their sex assigned at birth, a view shared by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the World Health Organization, among others. Beyond the medical consensus, the lived experiences of transgender people are equally compelling.

The parents of transgender children in my own extended family and community are some of the bravest people I know. Their journey is emotional and scary. Emotional, because it meant releasing their assumptions about who their child was and would become. Scary, because they did not know other parents with transgender kids and because they grasped that a great many people would not love and accept their child.

These parents are brave, yet also completely ordinary—they want what all parents want and will do everything in their power to keep their children safe, healthy, and happy.

That's no easy task. For transgender and nonbinary youth, the stakes are life and death: they attempt suicide at four times the rate of their cisgender peers. This distress stems not from their gender identity, but from rejection and mistreatment by family, teachers, classmates, and community. More than half are bullied, and one in ten lacks stable housing—often after their parents turn them away.* Many conclude that the world has no place for them and they will never belong.

Transgender Youth at School

Like every other student, transgender students do better in school when they feel welcomed, safe, and affirmed.

Affirming involves using the names and pronouns requested by these students, in the same way we would for a student who tells a teacher “I go by my middle name” or “I’m Will, not William".

Affirming also means these students can use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. Some people are uncomfortable with this idea because they fundamentally reject the idea that gender identity differs from sex assigned at birth. Others worry that this violates the privacy of cisgender students or makes them unsafe.

If safety or privacy concerns arise in a restroom or locker room, we should handle them as we do any school behavioral issue—by addressing the specific individual whose actions are problematic. I promise you there are thousands of transgender students who use school bathrooms and locker rooms every day without incident.

We can address restroom-related concerns in other ways, too. In new construction and renovation, many school divisions are creating gender-inclusive restrooms that feature floor-to-ceiling stall doors for increased privacy and sink areas that are more visible from school hallways. Here’s how they look at Johnson Senior High School in Minnesota.

The new design solves other problems, too: Students can't reach over or under stall doors to take photos of others using the toilet, and with the sink area more visible from the hallway, there's less opportunity for fighting, bullying, or vaping. The American Institute of Architects provides a good overview of the school-wide benefits.

Until a school division is able to offer inclusive restrooms, it can address privacy and safety concerns by allowing all students to choose between a traditional gendered, group restroom (e.g., “the boys bathroom”) and a single-occupancy bathroom. There are lots of reasons why a cisgender student might prefer the more private option, too.

Many school divisions including my local school district are addressing another pain point by eliminating the requirement that students “dress out” for PE in school-issued gym uniforms. It makes sense for students to wear comfortable, nonrestrictive clothing on days they have PE—but that’s something they can plan for and wear all day. Many of us can remember both our gym uniforms and the requirement to shower after every gym class: my middle school PE teacher stood by the group shower, clipboard in hand, making check marks by our names to enforce compliance.

It's easy to imagine how uncomfortable this would be for many students. They're self-conscious about being underdeveloped, overdeveloped, too heavy, or too thin compared to some perception of what a “normal” body should look like. They don't want anyone seeing their scars, birthmarks, or menstrual pads. Few adults would tolerate being forced to undress in front of others and reveal so much of themselves.

At the heart of all the talk about restrooms and locker rooms, we find this question: “Is there room for you - trans kid - in this world?” Our values teach us that there should be only one answer to that question. All faiths value children. Even for people of no religious faith, if we observe the natural world, the duty to care for the next generation can be seen all around us.

I reject the idea that we can’t find ways to value and include students of all gender identities. The world is big enough—and we are compassionate and capable enough—to build the spaces and systems that make it so.

*For information about bullying and suicidality among transgender youth as compared to other groups, see the peer-reviewed research articles and national survey data compiled in The Trevor Project Research Brief: Bullying and Suicide Risk among LGBTQ Youth. For information about housing instability, see Suarez NA, Trujillo L, McKinnon II, et al. Disparities in School Connectedness, Unstable Housing, Experiences of Violence, Mental Health, and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Transgender and Cisgender High School Students — Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2023. MMWR Suppl 2024;73(Suppl-4):50–58. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.su7304a6.

]]><![CDATA[Capital Improvement]]>Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:17:48 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/capital-improvement

At its meeting on December 18, the School Board voted on its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Direction. I voted against approving this Direction, and my comments below explain why. Although I am leaving the board this month, I think this particular issue is so consequential that I want to share what concerns me.

At our October meeting, I shared four words I hoped would guide our CIP work: Holistic, Strategic, Flexible, and Creative. But there's a fifth word—one that may be most important given our school division's values: Equity.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines equity as 'the quality of being fair and just, especially in a way that takes account of and seeks to address existing inequalities.' The Cambridge Dictionary describes it as 'the situation in which everyone is treated fairly according to their needs and no group of people is given special treatment.'

What does that mean when we’re talking about school buildings?

We all know that school buildings—in the DC area and nationwide—vary greatly in condition and amenities. While Arlington's schools are in better shape than many communities', disparities exist here too. Our 2023 Facilities Condition Assessment, updated this year, comprehensively documents the differences and needs across all our buildings. The report identifies approximately $599 million in major infrastructure work needed over the next ten years. This figure is an estimate that could shift in either direction: lower if we can extend the life of roofs, HVAC systems, and other components (though some replacements are already overdue), or higher given that it's calculated in today's dollars and doesn't account for future cost increases.

Beyond infrastructure needs, some of our buildings offer lower-quality learning environments due to inadequate educational specifications—for example, classroom size, natural lighting, and insufficient common areas like cafeterias, gyms, and playgrounds. At our last School Board meeting, students and staff from Thomas Jefferson Middle School spoke directly to these challenges.

Addressing these deficiencies will require major renovations at TJ and several other facilities. The feasibility studies we completed for five schools earlier this year confirm the need for hundreds of millions of dollars in renovation work, with five additional schools likely requiring similar attention.

Given these significant needs, how we allocate our limited capital funding is critical. As the body responsible for directing and approving the CIP, the School Board must ensure that every project is absolutely necessary. This is fundamental to equity—our commitment to being fair and just while addressing existing inequalities.

I'm not convinced all our current projects meet this threshold, and I believe we need rigorous analysis to demonstrate they do. This is good financial stewardship.

Imagine you're unfamiliar with Arlington and hearing about another school division's capital plans. This district is building a new career and technical education center for high school students. It's also spending $45 million to convert its existing high school CTE center into an elementary school.

You might reasonably assume: 'This district must need more elementary seats. And if they're converting a space clearly not designed for elementary students—at significant cost—this must be the most cost-effective way to add the seats they need.'

Under those conditions, the project would make sense. But Arlington faces very different conditions. We have a surplus of over 1,700 elementary seats—one that isn't disappearing anytime soon. Even after demolishing the Patrick Henry elementary building and losing its 463 seats, we'll maintain a comfortable margin of excess capacity. So why are we spending $45 million on a project we don't need?

I've heard two rationales. First, we don't want to move this elementary option program further from where most of its students live. As a parting observation, I'll suggest that Arlington needs clarity on whether proximity applies equally to option programs and neighborhood schools, and I will gently suggest that it might make sense to create a clear understanding that when you sign up for an option program, you are enrolling in a program, not a geographic location. If proximity is the driving factor for families, their neighborhood school is probably the more appropriate choice.

Second, relocating this program would require moving it into a neighborhood school building and rezoning those students elsewhere—a significant disruption. But how much disruption, and where? We don't know because the School Board has never directed that this analysis be done.

I've repeatedly asked for any analysis done before I joined the board, and none exists. During my tenure, we came closest to this analysis in our last CIP cycle. In December 2023, Reid Goldstein and I were the only School Board members who voted to include a study of alternatives to this $45 million project in the CIP Direction. With only two votes, it failed.

Yet despite this decision, materials were pulled together at the last minute in June 2024—the week of our CIP vote—at a former board chair's request. Most board members and the entire public saw this information for the first time during the meeting itself, moments before we voted. This isn't what I would consider robust analysis, nor is it how the School Board should conduct business. To be clear: this misstep belongs to the previous board, not our staff.

So we have no real analysis of alternatives to date, while evidence of facility needs across our division continues to mount. Now the board has another chance to request an analysis of alternative locations for MPSA—and is again choosing not to. This means spending $45 million on a project that may be unnecessary, while forgoing other projects that need investment.

I don't want to minimize the negative impacts of relocating MPSA. Converting a neighborhood school into an option school and rezoning students would be painful. We know this because over the past decade, APS has moved or closed nine schools and programs for various reasons. It has happened before and may need to happen again—if not now, then in the future.

In two of these nine cases, we closed neighborhood schools so their buildings could house option programs: Patrick Henry and McKinley. Some bristle when I call these closings, but in both cases, the School Board approved plans to cease operating a neighborhood school at that location with the intention to rezone its students to multiple other sites. To me—and I believe to the general public—that's closing a school.

If we now believe this approach is inconsistent with our values and would never repeat it, then I implore this board to codify that in policy and PIP. Otherwise, this board and future boards risk applying this logic inconsistently or not at all—and when the goalposts appear to shift from decision to decision, public trust erodes.

The inconvenient truth is that we do close and move schools and programs. This board contemplated closing Integration Station, an APS preschool, earlier this year. At the other end of the age spectrum, consider Arlington Community High School: by the time it moves into its new home at Amazon HQ2, APS will have relocated that school community five times in 20 years—including moving it off the Career Center campus. It serves the highest percentage of economically disadvantaged students of any APS school, and it troubles me to wonder if it might have enjoyed greater stability with a more affluent, well-organized parent advocacy base.

Four years ago, we relocated the Escuela Key elementary option program. At the time, Key's student body was 56% Hispanic and 34% economically disadvantaged. We moved it three miles farther from where most of its students lived, into a building operating at 133% capacity. Mold contaminated some relocatables. When teachers arrived in August, many classrooms lacked basic furniture—teacher desks, student desks, tables, bookshelves. The cafeteria remained unfinished for the first three months of school. While most issues have since been resolved, Key still operates at 124% capacity.

Equity.

Equity means the quality of being fair and just, especially in a way that takes account of and seeks to address existing inequalities. Addressing existing inequalities will take investment—a lot of it. That may necessitate some very hard choices.

It’s important for the board to have every bit of available information and analysis to make the hard choices in front of us, and to make choices in a way that applies our values consistently over time. To be good financial stewards, the board must explore alternatives before investing in specific projects with tunnel vision. For these reasons, I am voting no on this CIP Direction.

]]><![CDATA[Smarter Spending in School Divisions]]>Tue, 11 Nov 2025 21:23:50 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/smarter-spending-in-school-divisions

I love to beg, steal, or borrow great ideas from other school districts. Last year at the Virginia School Board Association's annual conference, I was really excited to learn about great budgeting practices from Albemarle County Public Schools.

Every school division would benefit from some version of these practices, and I believe other types of organizations can, too. Here are my top five takeaways:

1. Employee Voice: Albemarle created an Employee Budget Advisory group that includes two representatives from each school and central office department. This group discusses challenges that impede teaching and learning at their best, and they’re empowered to think about what resources would help alleviate those challenges. Members review budget options, weigh priorities, and offer ideas for cutting costs. Several of the reductions approved in the school division’s most recent annual operating budget came from this group.

2. Clear Goals and Outcomes (aka Logic Models): Anyone making a new budget request submits a form that includes clear identification of Inputs (initial, non-budgetary resources that must be invested to get started); Activities (first-year deliverables); Outputs (short-term results); and Outcomes (long-term, positive changes). Here’s an example that involves funding for specialized reading and math support.

Slide from Albemarle County Public Schools VSBA Presentation, 11/21/2024.

3. Accountability: The Superintendent and his leadership team conduct intentional, methodical follow up on investments they’ve made, using the logic models that were part of the budget requests. The owner(s) of each request meet with the Superintendent and the Assistant Superintendent for Strategic Planning each year to report on their progress. For relatively new requests, that might mean presenting information related to Inputs and Activities. Two years out, budget owners should be able to share data on Outputs. Three to five years after budget approval, budget owners need to share evidence of quantifiable, positive Outcomes.

4. Transparency: School division leaders use the reporting described above to make decisions about whether to continue, adjust, or abandon different initiatives. In each year’s published budget book, ACPS reports how previous investments are performing.

Slide from Albemarle County Public Schools VSBA Presentation, 11/21/2024.

5. Change Management: Albemarle recognizes that new policies, processes, and resources need to be implemented carefully. Its Budget Proposal Template includes this Change Management Matrix to encourage thoughtful execution:

]]><![CDATA[Bad Day, Dark Night, Or Wretched World View?]]>Thu, 09 Oct 2025 05:04:25 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/bad-day-dark-night-or-wretched-world-viewIn two months, I’ll end my term on the school board. These four years have been eventful in our school division, in some ways that are unique to Arlington and in other ways that will feel familiar nearly everywhere.

Over the past four years a lot has happened in my life outside the school board, too. My mother got sick with cancer and died. One member of my close family suffered a significant mental health crisis. Another was diagnosed with early onset dementia. I’ve been laid off twice. I very nearly lost a relationship with someone dear to me. I went through menopause.

It’s been the most difficult time of my life. I’m not sharing this to court pity; I know some of my board colleagues have shouldered their own sorrows and challenges, too. And I’m not suggesting that my school board work has been an additional burden. Actually, it has given me a sense of purpose and community that has been a balm.

I bring it up because these difficult experiences remind me that quite often, we don’t know what’s going on in other people’s lives.

When people seek me out as a school board member, sometimes they are not calm or kind. It’s sometimes tempting to write them off or refuse to engage until they can be more level-headed. I’m uncomfortable, however, with this idea that constituents have to conform to my definition of “level-headed” or “reasonable” or “respectful”. I’m acutely aware that there’s already a power imbalance: I make decisions that feel incredibly consequential when you’re a parent worried about your child or a staff member wanting to do your very best work.

Outside of the issue at hand, these people are often juggling other worries. I’ve learned that the Department of Government Efficiency eliminated their spouse’s job. Or they’ve lost extended family in a war-torn country halfway around the world. Their son has relapsed after rehab. (All real examples.) They are, like all of us at one time or another, in a dark night of the soul.

I met Dylan Marron in the first of the two jobs I lost while on the school board. Dylan taught an online course I produced called “How to Connect in a Divided World". He is something of an expert on this subject, having hosted an award-winning podcast called “Conversations With People Who Hate Me”. He reached out to people who had trolled him online, asked if they’d be open to a phone call, and invited them into a conversation. I encourage you to check it out.

Dylan suggests that when you encounter someone who seems like an asshat (my word, not his), you come up with one or two backstories about that person’s day or week or month. What might be fueling their anger or impatience? It’s a great way to move towards curiosity and compassion instead of judgment and retaliatory ill will.

Dylan also suggests that the rules of engagement shouldn’t center on whether we think the other person is respectful or level-headed. Rather, it’s about whether we feel like we’ll be physically and emotionally safe if we interact.

These ideas and practices help me through most of the difficult encounters I have, inside and outside my school board life. But sometimes I wonder—and increasingly, lately—how much compassion and understanding I should summon for someone who is not making me feel physically or emotionally unsafe, but whose opinions or actions make life feel unsafe for others.

During the 2018-2019 school year when I led a local education nonprofit, my organization sponsored a monthly series for DC high school students called “Speak Truth”. Students from across DC’s public and private schools gathered to discuss topics they identified were important to them. One month, they talked about belonging and inclusion.

A student at Georgetown Day School shared that he felt like an outsider because he was a political conservative in what he experienced as an overwhelmingly liberal school community. He wondered whether those on the left who championed inclusion could actually include people on the right.

A DACA student from Dunbar High School responded, “There is this idea of inclusion, and there is also a more basic right to exist. I can include anyone until they deny my right to exist.”

Her statement stuck with me. Someone’s right to exist. Their ability to access the same opportunities and protections that are available to others.

This goes beyond someone having a bad day, or a dark night of the soul, and not being the best version of themselves as they interact with others: it’s about creating the conditions that make others unsafe or define them as less than human. And it’s not exclusively a conservative thing or a liberal thing: it’s a close-minded, power-hoarding thing, an ungenerous and zero-sum view of humanity.

For a long time, I wasn’t sure what to do with this, what it meant for me in my interactions with other humans. I’m still not entirely sure I know. But I lean towards the idea that engagement is still the answer. (If safety is not at stake.) In his TED Talk, Dylan said:

Now in every one of my calls, I always ask my guests to tell me about themselves. And it's their answer to this question that allows me to empathize with them. And empathy, it turns out, is a key ingredient in getting these conversations off the ground, but it can feel very vulnerable to be empathizing with someone you profoundly disagree with. So I established a helpful mantra for myself. Empathy is not endorsement. Empathizing with someone you profoundly disagree with does not suddenly compromise your own deeply held beliefs and endorse theirs. Empathizing with someone who, for example, believes that being gay is a sin doesn't mean that I'm suddenly going to drop everything, pack my bags and grab my one-way ticket to hell, right? [Dylan is gay.] It just means that I'm acknowledging the humanity of someone who was raised to think very differently from me ….

I'm also aware that this talk will appear on the internet. And with the internet comes comment sections, and with comment sections inevitably comes hate. So as you are watching this talk, you can feel free to call me whatever you'd like. You can call me a "gaywad," a "snowflake," a "cuck," a "beta," or "everything wrong with liberalism." But just know that if you do, I may ask you to talk. And if you refuse or block me automatically or agree and hang up on me, then maybe, babe, the snowflake is you.

]]><![CDATA[What a difference a year makes]]>Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:54:57 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/what-a-difference-a-year-can-make
At yesterday's annual Organizational Meeting, the School Board elected a new Chair and Vice Chair for the coming school year. I will be very pleased to work with Bethany Zecher Sutton as our new Chair and Miranda Turner as our Vice Chair!

The outgoing Chair is invited to speak about the year just concluded and the work that's ahead. Here is what I said:

It’s been a privilege to serve as School Board Chair over the past year. I’d like to thank the Superintendent for his partnership and his Cabinet members for their leadership and collaboration. I’m grateful to our Vice Chair Bethany Zecher Sutton for her support, our School Board Clerk and Deputy Clerk for their patience and skill, and my School Board colleagues for their commitment to doing the hard work for this school division and our community.

When I began my term as Chair last July, I shared my belief that this board makes its best decisions when it is carefully attuned to the practical wisdom and perspectives of all who value public education. When we are generous in sharing our own ideas, questions, and experiences, we enrich the collective outcome.

I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished together over the past year, through genuine listening, valuing what we hear, and working together. I’d like to mention some of the progress I believe we’ve made in the areas of community relationship-building, stewardship of resources, valuing staff, and acting in alignment with our values.

Community Relationships
First, I want to say a little bit about community participation and trust-building, with an eye to ensuring that the school board is as well-connected and responsive as possible. As of today, we’ve streamlined our Guidelines for Public Comment and changed our Public Comment sign-up process so that it will be easier for people to participate. During my term as Chair I have taken notes during Public Comment and summarized the concerns brought forward during each meeting as one way of demonstrating that speakers are listened to and their feedback is carefully considered.

In an effort to highlight issues that are top-of-mind for many of our stakeholders, this year we changed the way we presented Monitoring Items. We identified a more specific focus for each monitoring report—for example, chronic absenteeism within the broader category of Student Services. We’ve also made an effort to include school staff as co-presenters of our Monitoring Items to hear directly how the issue being discussed manifests in their classrooms and schools.

We’re reinventing our School Board Advisory Councils so that they are more relevant, better aligned to the APS Strategic Plan, and will make better use of the volunteer time and energy that we’re so lucky to have in Arlington. I am particularly grateful to all those who have participated in the Advisory Council Working Group and we look forward to sharing more about the proposed changes this fall.

In this year’s budget development process, we provided expanded opportunities for public engagement, including drop-in Open Office Hours last summer, meetings with community groups last fall, and multiple meetings that were open to the public from July through February. We posted to the APS website an infographic that explains the budget process start to finish and shared the template that APS department heads use to request changes to their baseline budget.

Good Stewardship
A second area of progress been in good stewardship of the school division’s financial, human, and capital resources. For the first time, we have written guidelines that spell out when and how our reserve funds should be used, in order to get on—and stay on—a more sustainable financial footing. We’re standing up a hotline to report suspected waste and fraud. This past year we’ve conducted rigorous internal audits and publicly shared the results as audit reports are finished. Then, we’re actively monitoring the implementation of recommended improvements from each audit. You can expect to hear about the final audit from this school year, on Information Services device management, next month as soon as it is completed.

Valuing Staff
A third area of progress I see is in the effort we’ve made to ensure that our talented staff members have the resources and support they need to do their best work.

Early in the year, teachers and school leaders shared their concerns about the negative effects of constant access to phones. Through careful listening and collaboration, we created a cell phone policy to create better conditions for teaching, learning, and building positive relationships among students and staff.

The audit of and leadership changes in our Human Resources department aim to make HR the consistently responsive, accurate, and supportive resource all our employees deserve. We closed a projected $49 million budget gap this year without instituting an across-the-board class size increase. In the budget, we were able to expand parental leave and offer a better compensation increase than the year before.

We’ve followed up on last year’s audit of our school activity funds by making changes in our Finance department designed to ensure that school administrators, school treasurers, and other staff members have clear guidance and support about how to manage these funds. We created a Policy Implementation Procedure on administrative leave so that our staff members would have a clear sense of the rules of the road when complaints are made against employees and investigations need to occur.

We’ve launched a more inclusive and transparent process for health insurance procurement—thank you to all employees who completed the recent survey to inform this process. We’re now writing a standard operating procedure that will lay out how new principals are hired to ensure that the staff members and families in those school communities have a solid understanding of how their interests will be represented in panel interviews and by other means.

The School Board has also invested energy in its own improvement. With the help of our School Board office staff, we’ve created a comprehensive shared drive that School Board members can reference and to better preserve institutional knowledge. The School Board is creating a process to conduct a formal, annual self-evaluation, something prescribed in our policy that we haven’t undertaken during my time on the board. Beyond compliance with policy, we want to model a commitment to reflective practice, growth mindset, and continuous improvement, which are important at all levels of our school division.

Living Our Values
Finally, and most important, I want to note that this year APS remained steadfast in its commitment to providing safe, welcoming, and inclusive environments for all our students, families and staff, in spite of changes being handed down at the federal and state levels.

In the wake of a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education in February, we are defending our policy and practices that protect LGBTQ+ youth and ensure they can access every opportunity available to other students. Although the Virginia Department of Education has limited how it recognizes student gender in its state-level record keeping, in our local record keeping and in our schools we will still affirm all gender identities. Similarly, we remain committed to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion even while those values are under attack—because we want a public education system that works for all our students and prepares them for the diverse, complex, and ever-changing world they’ll inhabit as adults.

This winter we passed a Safe Schools Resolution and we created a new policy that details how we will engage with law enforcement representatives outside of our local police department, including ICE agents. I want to say a special word of thanks here to our in-house legal team, who trained all employees working at schools and on school buses in how to respond if agents come asking for students or staff members.

There are new challenges to grapple with as well—like the Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which casts into doubt our students’ ability to engage with a truly varied, culturally rich, and representative curriculum. The federal spending bill signed into law last week will slash funding for Medicaid, which provides health insurance to 37 million school-age children and is the fourth-largest source of federal revenue for school divisions. It’s hard to overstate the importance of Medicaid to serving students with disabilities, with mental health conditions, and behavioral health needs.

The new federal law also limits eligibility for SNAP, which provides food assistance to over 13 million children and makes kids automatically eligible for free meals at school. It significantly narrows the ways that students and their parents can access federal financial aid for a college education.

For all of us who care deeply about our youngest community members and want to see them thrive, these are disturbing developments. It feels more important than ever to live out our core values, which are: excellence, equity and inclusion, relationships, integrity, stewardship, valuing staff, and providing a world-class, whole child education to every young person we welcome into our schools. I look forward to doing that work for the rest of my term.

]]><![CDATA[Closing or moving schools: the why, when, and how]]>Thu, 19 Jun 2025 11:00:11 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/closing-or-moving-schools-the-why-when-and-howDuring my four years on the School Board, the question of closing a school or program has come up three times. A month into my term, the School Board voted to pause the Virtual Learning Program, effectively ending it. In 2023, we considered whether to close Nottingham Elementary as a way to create swing space that would facilitate other, future school renovation and construction projects. This spring, we considered eliminating the Integration Station preschool program for budgetary reasons.

There's nothing I can think of that generates more upset for a school division. If Superintendents and School Boards are going to propose closing a school, it has to be done with an ironclad rationale and with the utmost care.

In Fairfax County in the 1980s, both my elementary and high schools were closed due to declining enrollment while I attended. As a parent and a PTA leader, I participated in deliberations that led to the closure of McKinley, my kids' elementary school. (At the time APS proposed this, it was not guaranteeing that the entire school community would move together to the newly-constructed Cardinal Elementary, which is why it is correctly categorized as a school closing.) During that same process, APS moved two option programs, Escuela Key and Arlington Traditional School.

So--I have some history with this topic. Because of that, and because of my most recent experience with Integration Station, I have been curious about how APS and other school divisions could improve how we take up this topic and make good decisions. I reached out to staff and families who are part of the Integration Station, Nottingham, and VLP communities to learn about their experiences and hear their ideas for how we could do this better. (Please note: While to my knowledge there are no immediate plans to close or move anyone in Arlington, I do think it would behoove us to develop a policy and related processes that would govern this if it comes up again.)

I spoke with 13 individuals and here's what I heard:

1. Identify clear goals. What problem(s) are we trying to solve? What initial data suggest that closing or moving this school or program will be a good solution? These goals should not change during the decision making process. The individuals I spoke to felt like the following would be reasonable goals to identify:

Budget savings
Addressing facility usage and capacity issues
Addressing staffing issues (e.g., ensuring there are sufficient qualified staff for a particular program)
Insufficient impact/effectiveness (for an option school or specialized program)
It is part of a larger strategy (e.g., expansion of an option program, reimagining how we provide services in PreK, etc.).
The result of this Step No. 1 should be a clear answer to the question: Why was this particular school or program identified?

2. Involve the right people. Before a closure or move is recommended to the School Board and communicated to the public, there should be serious deliberation among a group that includes:

The Superintendent: Given that this is one of the most challenging, and likely upsetting, decisions that a school division can make, folks would like to know that the leader of the division is directly involved and will take ownership of the recommendation.
Chief of School Support
Facilities: Assistant Superintendent and Director of Facilities and Operations
Transportation: Assistant Superintendent and Executive Director
Director of Special Education
Director of English Learners
Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Specific supervisors within the Office of Academics, as necessary and appropriate (i.e., for Integration Station, head of Early Childhood)
Director of Budget
1-2 current or immediate past member(s) of the Facilities Advisory Council (FAC)
Principal(s) of affected programs/schools
School Board liaison.

The individuals I spoke with felt particularly strongly about the need to include the principal(s) as individuals with deep, specific knowledge of their school community and the impacts that would need to be anticipated and planned for. They also strongly recommended incorporating Transportation from the start and consistently including Special Education, English Learning, and DEI so that the needs of specific populations are always factored in.

I shared a worry that involving school principals and/or FAC representatives might risk making something public before a recommendation is fully developed. The individuals I spoke with suggested that this worry implies a lack of trust: “Why would you assume that people can’t exercise professionalism and discretion?” They advised that the greater risk was bringing forward an ill-conceived recommendation because we hadn’t involved the right people from the outset.

3. Utilize a clear decision making framework. This group should employ a checklist of essential questions that need to be answered, including:

Is there another way that APS could achieve its goal(s) without closing or moving this school or program? (consideration of alternative scenarios)
Is this decision out of sync with other initiatives in APS? (For instance, we are going to close or move an Immersion program site but we are making this decision one year ahead of a comprehensive Immersion visioning process; we identify swing space well before we’re certain we’ll even need it.)
What special characteristics of this school community need to be considered and planned for?
Will there be disproportionate impact on specific populations? This could include
- Students and families that have already been affected by a closure, move, or boundary change. One parent noted that it is really important to consider moving preschool and countywide special education programs in this light. Though we tend to think of these particular moves as decisions that are purely capacity-related, they in fact separate children and families from their existing school community. One parent shared that her ninth grade son has already gone through five school moves due to a) changes in location for special education PreK, b) site changes for countywide programs for students with disabilities in grades K-8, as well as c) the discontinuation of the Virtual Learning Program.
- Economically disadvantaged families. Considerations here might include parents’ ability to reach the new school/program location via public transportation, or the impact of leaving behind established community supports (e.g., a food pantry, afterschool program, volunteer tutoring partnership, etc.).
- Students and families historically disadvantaged by virtue of their race/ethnicity and/or other identities. Are these populations bearing the brunt of a school closure or move, in this instance as well as over time? Will we be placing students in a new environment where they will have fewer (or no) peers who share their identity(ies)?
- Students identified for special education services, English learner instruction, and/or advanced academics.
What will happen to the staff at this school or program? What clear information can we provide about what will happen and when? Will the timing of this decision align with the timing for hiring and job placements the following year?
How will this closure or move impact enrollment and capacity at other schools?
How will this closure or move impact students’ travel to and from school (e.g., length of bus rides, need for additional or altered bus routes, walkability)
Will we offer any opportunities for grandfathering particular students or phasing out a school or program over time? Why or why not? If our approach here is inconsistent with what we’ve offered before, do we have clear reasons why we are doing it differently this time?
In two or three years’ time, how will we know if we have achieved our goals? What will be the process for evaluating and communicating this?

4. If a recommendation is going to be made to close or move a school or program, develop a comprehensive communications plan in advance. Who needs to be informed? Who needs to be engaged? When and how should we reach out to those groups? This would include families, students, and staff at the school or program in question; staff and students at the school(s) receiving any new students as a result of the change; community organizations partnering with the school or program in question; the County Board; and the general public.

The individuals I spoke with observed that sometimes the very valid reasons for recommending a change get lost in the way it is communicated. They suggest the following improvements in communication and engagement:

The initial information to the affected parents, staff, and students should come from a known and trusted source. Most of the individuals I spoke with felt that the news would have been easier to receive if it had come from their school principal, or their principal and someone in central office together. When they don’t have any connection with the person delivering this news, it creates confusion and mistrust.
The individuals I spoke to understand that not everyone is a gifted communicator in situations like these (though they may have many other talents!). Consider who beyond the principal is engaging with the affected school communities most directly. Are they the best choice, in terms of their knowledge, listening skills, and empathy? Be intentional about who you choose here.
The Superintendent needs to be engaged with the affected school community at the outset, in a meeting and in written communication. They need to know that as the leader of the division, he believes this is the right thing to do. The individuals I spoke to feel like the Superintendent needs to be a solid “yes” in recommending the change. They would like the School Board to function as the respectful skeptic in need of convincing: “OK, make your case.”
The affected school community needs time with the School Board, outside of the limited windows provided by Public Comment and Open Office Hours.
Don’t assign a brand new School Board member to be the liaison to school that may be subject to a closure or move.
These meetings should be held at the school site, with interpreters available—APS comes to them, rather than asking them to come to us.
Don’t change the goals. Every division leader and school board member should be communicating the same goals and rationale.
Anticipate questions that are likely to come up and have answers ready. If a question comes up that can’t be answered immediately, share when and how that information will be ready.
Show your work. Provide the data and analysis that fueled the recommendation. Be ready to meet with individuals and groups who have questions about the data or alternative interpretations. Currently, it feels like it falls to parents to ask for and analyze supporting data, and only certain school communities are equipped to organize and advocate in this way.
Meet in person early on with affected staff members.
More meetings and conversations. Fewer exchanges via trading questions and answers in writing via memos and FAQs. When written information is provided, clearly identify the date and source(s) of the information—version control. One parent noted that the boundary adjustments for Elementary School Immersion a few years ago went well because there was direct outreach to every affected family—which admittedly is not always possible, but goes a long way.

If you have experience with this issue and can suggest other thoughtful improvements, I'd love to hear from you. I believe that the School Board does its best work when it listens closely and is open to making positive course corrections based on what it learns. In four years, I have never been disappointed when I've done so.]]><![CDATA[Choosing to Abstain]]>Fri, 23 May 2025 20:03:33 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/choosing-to-abstainLast week, the School Board meeting included an Information/Action item that recommended a change to the approved school year calendar. I chose to abstain from this vote—something I have not done before as a board member.

Since the meeting, I’ve received questions and comments about my decision to abstain. As an elected official accountable to the community I serve, I believe it’s important to explain any vote I cast--or in this case, my decision not to vote. (This is why I have maintained a public record of all my votes since taking office, along with my commentary on particularly significant votes, in multiple languages.)

As a board member, I have always sought to understand an issue as thoroughly as possible in order to make an informed, responsible decision. This involves asking questions (often I ask a lot of them!); listening carefully to the perspectives of families, staff, and students who will be affected by a vote; studying how other school divisions have handled the same issue; and when necessary and possible, working with my colleagues and APS staff to explore compromises or alternative solutions.

Because of this, I don’t like Information / Action items. Normally, an issue and a related recommendation are presented an Information item and not voted on as an Action item until the subsequent board meeting. This allows board members time to deliberate and it gives the community time to understand what’s being proposed and advocate.

In this case, the School Board learned about the proposed calendar change Tuesday afternoon. It was shared with the community on Wednesday, and the board was to vote on Thursday.

The issue at hand was (is) deeply important to many in our community. It was also divisive: in the space of about 24 hours, the School Board received hundreds of emails. I carve out time to read all incoming emails, but in this case I was not able to because I also have a full-time job. Additionally, from Thursday morning right up until the time of the meeting, I was receiving new information about the possible consequences of this vote. In the very limited amount of time available, I could not study what other school divisions were doing in response to the same issue, and I could not explore whether there were possible compromises or ways to mitigate the negative impacts of a vote in either direction.

There are completely valid reasons why this was presented as an Information / Action item. It is also true that I was deeply conflicted about the decision (to learn more about that, you can watch the meeting video and listen to my comments beginning at 3:31:20). With the time I’d had to deliberate and the information that was still coming in, I could not cast a responsible, well-informed vote. So my decision was to abstain.

Board members may abstain from a vote for a few different reasons. Abstention is different from recusal: in abstention, the board member participates in the discussion but declines to vote. In recusal, the board member has a conflict of interest and does not participate in the discussion or the vote.

I understand that an elected official’s decision to abstain may be seen as an abdication of decision making responsibility. And I believe that it’s my job to cast votes that are reflective of serious thought, study, and engagement. Last week, those two principles were in conflict.

I’m not a career politician and I don’t have a degree in any related field; I made a judgment call. It’s entirely possible that I should have made a different call, and if you believe I should have done so, I welcome your constructive feedback.

]]><![CDATA[why i support june prakash for school board]]>Mon, 28 Apr 2025 10:06:09 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/why-i-support-june-prakash-for-school-boardDear friends,

I’ll be voting for June Prakash in the Arlington Democrats’ School Board Endorsement Vote, and I hope you will join me. For information about how to vote in person or online, please see HERE. Please note that voting concludes on May 10!

I support June because I believe she will provide the kind of oversight and leadership that we need right now for Arlington Public Schools. When I think about some of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing APS right now, these are top of mind:

Deep Knowledge of, and Experience with, APS Operations. As a board member for the past four years, I’ve seen firsthand the need for APS to strengthen various areas of its operation. And while there has been some good progress, it will require sustained effort.

June brings firsthand experience with APS operations, a deep understanding of the complexities involved, and a recognition of the significant impact that operational success or failure can have on APS’s ability to ensure that every student in our community learns, thrives, and excels.

These are among the most timely and urgent needs I see in APS today:

Finance: How can APS employ sustainable budgeting practices, gauge the impact of its investments, diversify its revenue sources, and ensure that the budget is shared in a transparent and accessible way?
Facilities: How can APS ensure that it is spending every capital dollar as wisely as possible so that it can attend to as many facilities as possible that are in need of improvement? Last year’s Facilities Condition Assessment provided an array of data about what needs to be done—now the School Board and APS leadership have to determine how it will get done. How will APS manage its debt service responsibly so that it does not place extra strain on the annual operating budget, as the second largest area of expense? How are facilities decisions informed by enrollment projections, which indicate that we will have a significant number of vacant seats in our elementary schools over the next decade?
Staff recruiting and retention: Is APS doing everything it can to attract and keep great staff members, its most valuable asset? APS must recruit and hire in ways that keep it competitive with other local school divisions. Once hired, staff need resources, professional learning, time, and supportive leadership to do their best work. The recent audit of the APS Human Resources department points out many ways that employees’ needs are not being met—including the needs of HR staff themselves. This is a longstanding issue that requires ongoing attention.
Operating procedures: How can APS increase its efficiency and ensure that it is handling operational issues in a consistent way? Multiple recent internal audits underscore the need for clear, well-documented standard operating procedures in the areas of finance, human resources, and more. Absent these procedures, there is increased risk for error, needless delays, loss of institutional knowledge, and inconsistent response to staff, family, and student concerns.

Educator Perspective and Experience. It is not an easy time to be a teacher. Public education is under attack. Policymakers and the general public are asking schools to meet an increasing number of societal needs. Teachers often lack the time to learn about and apply new strategies that will improve teaching and learning. Many teachers cannot afford to live in the communities they serve.

These issues are not unique to APS, but they certainly apply here. On top of those universal needs, I see the following local challenges:

Many educators in APS were adversely impacted by the shift in health insurance last year. From my vantage point, this was a significant blow to morale and carried very real consequences for many staff members who had to find new providers or even change or forego medical treatments.
Many report difficulty in getting the information and services they need from Human Resources.
There has been progress, but still work to do, in order to ensure that staff members have meaningful input into decisions that affect their work and the students they teach.
APS should be proud that it is engaging in collective bargaining. It is still early days and there is much to learn and improve as the school division works to bargain in good faith and align that work with other areas of its operation.

The School Board makes its best decisions when it is keenly listening to the perspectives and experiences of students, families, community members, and the staff members who are the lifeblood of the system. June has worked in APS as a kindergarten instructional assistant—she has firsthand APS educator experience. During her tenure as president of AEA, she has listened attentively to the needs of staff members in myriad roles and advocated constructively on their behalf with APS leadership. The School Board needs a member who will make decisions that are grounded in the goal of valuing, retaining, and developing a truly excellent staff. June brings that experience and orientation.

I have deep respect for the other candidate in this race and I believe she is a tremendous asset to this community. I believe she brings strengths, experience, and perspectives that would also add value to the School Board. I wish a little bit that there were two seats open, because I think these two candidates would complement each other very well.

But when I ask myself, “What do the School Board and APS need most urgently right now?”, in my experience the highest-priority needs are in operational improvements and in the way APS values, supports, and learns from its staff members. I am confident that June Prakash will do great work in these areas, and in others, if elected to the Arlington School Board. I hope you’ll join me in voting for June.]]><![CDATA[March 2025 budget comments]]>Mon, 28 Apr 2025 10:04:48 GMThttps://www.marykadera.org/blog/march-2025-budget-commentsLast night, the School Board approved its FY26 Proposed Budget, which now goes through a period of public discussion and refinement before the board approves a final budget in May.

Below, I'm sharing the remarks I made at last night's meeting about our proposed budget and the process we've undertaken to develop it.

Later today, the School Board and the County Board will gather in a joint public work session to share and discuss each organization's FY26 proposed budget; I encourage you to watch via video stream or join us in the County Board Meeting Room at 1 pm.

I want to thank the Superintendent and members of his leadership team for their partnership and willingness to work together a little differently this year. In particular, I am grateful for the conscientious work of Andy Hawkins, Tameka Lovett-Miller, and John Mayo.

When we began our budget work in July, we knew we would have a considerable gap to cover. In the initial scenarios we looked at, the gap ranged from an estimated 35 million dollars on the low end, if we built in just a step increase for our employees with no cost of living adjustment, to 55 million dollars if we wanted to give a step and a 3% COLA.

We also knew we would not have reserves to plug that gap as we’d done in years past, nor did we want to keep using reserves, which are one-time money, to fund ongoing costs.

Back in the summer, we agreed we wanted to align our financial resources to our strategic plan and data about changing student needs. We wanted to free up resources for priorities and needs that are currently unfunded. We had the goal of ensuring that we can recruit and retain skilled, talented, and effective staff. And we wanted to do all of this in a way that would increase our financial stability and reduce our structural deficit.

These were our goals at the outset, which I hope you saw reflected in the budget direction the School Board approved last October.

In my School Board life, whenever we’re wrestling with a mighty problem, I like to remember that we are not the only school division in the universe. I ask myself, “What have other school divisions done when they faced similar problems?” So my work began with a lot of study of what other divisions have done to close budget gaps and realign resources. This study of other districts factored into our work over the summer, and it also is reflected in the analysis we commissioned from an outside company that has worked with many other school systems on issues just like ours.

Tonight in the budget presentation, you heard about things that are being proposed as potential reductions. What you didn’t hear about are the things that we did NOT include, and that we saw in other school divisions. I think this is useful context for what is being presented, so I want to talk just a bit about things we rejected, for a variety of reasons.

We did not increase class sizes, which is admittedly the easiest lever to pull when a school division wants to reduce costs. In our public meetings, we regularly hear from APS educators during public comment who talk about the impact of class size increases on their workload and their ability to know and support each one of their students.

We did not eliminate retiree health benefits as other divisions have done, because we know that these benefits are significant to our retirees, who devoted so many years to our community, and because we know they are an important reason why many educators choose to stay with APS.

We did not outsource and privatize parts of our operation like Extended Day, transportation, or custodial and maintenance services, as is the case in many other school divisions. These employees are members of our APS family and they form valuable relationships with our students, staff, and families that enrich our school communities. Many students begin and end their days with our bus drivers and Extended Day staff, who get to know them and provide positive support.

We did not scale back or eliminate our program for court-involved young people, or our program for older students that enables them to complete credits for a high school diploma while holding down one, and sometimes more than one, job.

We did not close a neighborhood school, which many school divisions have done as enrollment flatlines or decreases and the cost of building upkeep and renovation increases.

These are just a few of the measures that we determined weren’t a good idea for Arlington Public Schools.

There are other ideas we decided have promise, but will require more study and may take more than one year to implement. An example of this is converting more, or all, of our schools to renewable energy sources. At a net zero school like Discovery, this saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in utility costs each year.

I also want to say a few words about our process, which has been different this year in that the School Board and Superintendent are presenting this budget together. This year’s budget in my estimation required a different approach, where the board in its governance role and the Superintendent in his leadership and operational role had the opportunity for extended deliberation, discussion, and reflection.

Now we are bringing you the work we’ve done to date as a result of our deliberation, but our work is not done. The work sessions, hearing, and community engagement over the next several weeks are a crucial part of getting to the best possible result.

If you know anything about me from my time thus far on the board, I hope you know and trust my sincere belief that each of us has unique knowledge and perspective to share, and it’s only when we are genuinely curious and listening to each other that our own understanding and decision making can be enriched. You see things in your classrooms, in your homes and school communities, and in your team’s work here at Syphax, that I can’t see or know nearly as well as you do. When you share those ideas and considerations with me, I make better decisions.

It’s in that spirit of transparency and collaboration that we have posted, along with the proposed budget, a number of other documents that provide a window into our work to date. We’re showing you our work, and asking you to help us elaborate and improve it.

Finally, I want to note that in this particularly difficult budget season, and at a time of economic and job uncertainty for many in our community, we are necessarily having to make decisions that have a very human impact on many people. I want to say to those of you directly impacted by the proposed reductions that I am aware this is difficult and emotional. For me, that’s why it’s even more important that we use the time between now and May to be absolutely sure that we are making the most careful and strategic decisions possible. I thank all of you in advance for the contributions I know you will make.

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