My Vision

Parents have the primary responsibility for the development of their children. Their attitude, encouragement and involvement have the most influence in a child’s growth and education. Over 90% of Utah parents enroll their children in district and charter schools. These combine to create public schools for kids. Cindy is uniquely qualified as both parent and practitioner to take a preK-post high school view of our education system. The Utah constitution calls for the Utah Board of Education to oversee public education in our state. Too often we have top-down unfunded mandates that reduce the nimbleness of schools and impair local ability to meet student needs. Cindy will work for policies that make sense for schools and families.

Frequently Asked Questions

*How do you feel about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools?

Utahns understand that CRT is a graduate-level theoretical lens that would not be appropriate for K12 schools, but many feel that some elements have been or could be introduced to students. We created a board rule (R277-328) that prohibits:

1. Promotion that one race is inherently inferior or superior to another

2. Promotion that a person’s race determines his or her character, values, morals, etc.

3. Promotion that a current student/person bears responsibility for the actions of others throughout history

4.  That a person can be discriminated against for his or her race

Our students need to know that a person’s race doesn’t dictate moral conscience. They also need to know that the country was not founded and designed to promote slavery. It was founded and designed to allow, for the first time in our history, the governed to have a say in the government. This was monumental. That is not to say that the abhorrence of slavery didn’t happen nor should it be omitted. Students should be taught accurate history, but slavery shouldn’t be taught as the predominant factor for the design of the United States of America.

My fellow candidate wrongly states in messages to delegates that our Board created a “loophole at the end allowing teachers to slide CRT into the class.” There is no such thing. There is an opportunity for the local board to have a public and transparent meeting if, for example, a parent does not want the civil war or WWII taught because the first prohibited concept is inherent to both of those. It is a safety net that children won’t grow up with big learning gaps if the Rule is misinterpreted or used inappropriately.

*What do you think of Common Core?

Common Core was adopted in Utah (and most states)  12 years ago in math and English. We revise our standards in these areas every five-seven years, so it can look different from what it was 12 years ago or even five years ago, but there will always be elements that are the same. For example, the Pythagorean theorem was in the CC. The Pythagorean theorem is also in the Utah core today.

Every time we have revised the standards, we have opened them up to massive amounts of public input electronically and held input gathering sessions in person for community members, so I feel comfortable in saying that we currently have Utah standards even if there is some crossover. Parents want students to know certain basic concepts that all students should know whether they were in common core or not.

I would invite all to visit our math and English standards and share with us which skills they feel are valuable for students and which they feel need to be added, removed, or revised. The English standards are up for review in 2022 and are out for public input currently.

On a historical note, I do not like that states were incentivized by the Race to the Top Grant to adopt Common Core. Even though Utah did not ever get one cent of that money, making our standards free from federal financial ties, I do not condone the carrot that was dangled.

*Are there federal funding ties to Utah Education?

Recently the DOE hinted at tying instructional requirements to CARES funding dollars in a draft application, and many states, including Utah, fought back (wisely.) The DOE pulled it out of the potential application, so there would remain no tie from federal funding to Utah standards. Federal funds continue to support special education and Title programs. Some say, “But we did have to make a plan for elementary and secondary recovery dollars.” This is true. However, the states have autonomy over their own respective plan designs, leaving us in the driver seat.

On a historical note- I was a teacher when No Child Left Behind hit over 20 years ago, and I don’t think it did students or teachers any favors in the arena of assessment. We could talk about this for a long time, but ultimately, two particularly egregious pieces were the calculation and reporting elements and the special education requirements (though new laws and adaptive testing have helped to mitigate some of that.) Little known fact—some think the federal DOE requires too much testing, but our state legislature requires more.

*What do you think of the legislative override of the veto for sports participation for transgender students?

My fellow candidate wrongly states, on her FB page, that I do not support women’s sports. Elite female athletes like Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Nancy Hogshead-Makar believe that transgender women competing with biological women threatens women's sports. Caitlin Jenner, famous transgender athlete agrees, and I agree, but I also understand the complexities of the issue, and so do both our governor and our legislators. While the legislature overrode Governor Cox’s veto, President Adams made it clear that there are quandaries with the override when he said that they anticipate a lawsuit and assigned 500,000.00 from the Attorney General’s budget to create indemnification for schools and the Utah High School Athletic Association.

When the lawsuit transpires, a commission will be enacted that will then study the issue to find solutions that will provide opportunities for transgender students and biological female students to participate in legal and reasonable ways for all parties to be protected. I don’t know what these will be, but may include such things as differentiated competitive categories. Or- perhaps it will include a requirement for double races spaced reasonably apart. Or- it could possibly include a requirement for USHE (Utah System of Higher Education) to determine scholarship recipients based on percentages of transgender and biologically female students, to create fair opportunities for all.

No matter how the commission moves forward, the legislature designed it to include input from multiple groups to find long-term solutions considering opportunity, competitive fairness, and safety for all.

*In a text to delegates, my fellow candidate wrongly states that teachers are forced to ask students what their preferred pronoun is or that students are forced to share it.

This is not true. Some teachers were asking for preferred pronouns on their initial info sheets. Our USBE State Superintendent, Syd Dickson, sent an email to every local superintendent and charter director counseling against the practice and explaining to them that the practice violates the state parental rights code.

There was a Gender Identity Guidance Document that the Standards and Assessment Committee was researching and drafting that included all state and federal laws, but it did not pass out of committee and was never heard nor voted on by the full board. It received 20,000 pieces of public input dispersed almost equally in favor and against it. In addition, the attorneys of six large districts asked USBE to allow them to work through issues at the local level, and one Rural district passed a public resolution requesting the same. The GID is no longer on the committee agenda and policy will be addressed at the local level.

*Do you support Comprehensive Sex Education?

No. It is against the law in Utah. Additionally, the areas of human reproduction that are taught in health classes include abstinence and must be opted IN by the parent.

*Do you support Social and Emotional Learning?

I do not support transformational SEL principles, but I do support SEL principles that help all children access learning better. For example, things like Wellness Rooms in school where the lights are a little less bright and students can go to regroup if they are struggling emotionally because a parent went into the hospital, they had an altercation with a friend, or any number of disturbances that beset children emotionally.

If there is SEL curriculum to be used across the board, I like the process that Washington District followed where they went to the publisher and explained their community standards and asked for anything contrary to be removed. The company did so, and the district brought the remainder of the materials back and made them all available to parents. Parents came and vetted the materials and wanted them for their kids. This is an excellent process if an actual SEL curriculum is going to be used.

*What about books in Libraries?

On social media opponents wrongly state that I support pornography in schools. Of all the false accusations being lobbed at me and the USBE, this is the most offensive. It is ridiculous that I even have to state that I do not support pornography in schools. To address concerns, USBE recently passed a Board Rule requiring each district and charter to create a policy that outlines how a book can be challenged to be removed from the library, but also one outlining the criteria and process to put a book IN the library in the first place. Materials online and in text form should be age-appropriate and legal. We are also working on a model policy where I have advocated to include a provision for communication to patrons and also one to have communication between similar grade schools in a multi-school district/charter system, so if a book is challenged at one jr. high, the other committees are made aware of the challenge and committee’s determination.

https://usbe.civicclerk.com/BoardView/Editor/AnnotateFile?adocimg=11325&itemid=6073