I work in AI professionally, and here's what that's taught me about raising kids in this next chapter.

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The AI age makes character matter more, not less.

When a machine can answer anything, the rare skill is knowing whether the answer is true. These systems are built to sound right. Our kids will spend their whole lives needing to tell the difference between what's true and what just sounds true. That skill can't be downloaded. It's built the old way: through real experience, by kids who have been raised to care about the truth.

The same AI that can eat five hours of a kid's afternoon can also help a Glendora junior take a college class a year early, check a flight plan in the aviation program, or dig into history in ways her textbook never could. Which one happens doesn't depend on the software. It depends on who she is when she picks up the tool. That's character. And character is formed here, in this town: in our schools, homes, churches, and ballfields. Or it isn't formed at all.

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A kid can only catch the machine's mistakes if she knows something real.

This is what I've learned inside the industry. The person who notices when AI is wrong is always the person who knows the subject firsthand. A student who has stood in the San Gabriel wash after a storm knows something about erosion no chatbot can fake for her. A student who has run a preflight checklist, built a stage set, argued in front of live judges, or worked at a real lab bench has a foundation the machine can't shake.

So my plan is simple to say and hard to do: give every Glendora kid real, hands-on experiences the machine can't fake, and raise kids who care about the difference.

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What I will actually do as your trustee:

Stand up for the programs that teach kids to think on their feet.

This past February, a Glendora High student stood up at a board meeting and asked the district not to let her speech and debate program fade away. She described students doing the work of coach, fundraiser, and adviser all by themselves. She compared it to a football team sent onto the field with no coach. She was right. Debate, mock trial, and academic competition teach a kid to tell a real argument from a performance. That's exactly the skill this new era demands. Our athletes have paid coaches, as they should. Our academic teams deserve the same respect.

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Fix the rules that make clubs die quietly.

It shouldn't be this hard for a willing teacher to say yes to sponsoring a club. I'll push the board to fix the rules that pile risk and unpaid work onto club advisers, so programs stop disappearing whenever one generous adult retires or a room isn't available.

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Grow the programs families are already choosing.

College classes at Citrus while still in high school. Career paths like aviation. Languages. Our district's enrollment just held steady for the first time in ten years. The way to keep families choosing Glendora schools is to keep building things their kids can only get here. I'll help keep that going, and I'll work with community partners, including the Glendora Education Foundation, to make it stronger.

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Bring real AI experience to district decisions.
Should students use AI on assignments? How does the district protect itself online? How should it spend its technology dollars? These questions are already on the board's desk. I've spent my career working with these systems and learning exactly how and when they get things wrong. Glendora should have that experience in the room when these choices get made.

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That's the work. If it sounds like the kind of school board you want, I'd love your help.