What types of transportation do you and your family use during an average week, and how has this shaped your view of transportation policy for schools?

I drive my kid to school in our 2020 Honda Accord and use my POV to get to the grocery store. I take the bus and the Brown Line to get most other places, however. My view of transportation to schools is that we need more of it -- meaning we need to be providing busing to schools at much higher volumes, especially for low-income families who need to get their kids to high-performing and/or selective enrollment schools.

What are some of the transportation challenges that families and students face in your district?

In addition to busing, I am concerned that we are not establishing safe roads where parents can let their kids walk to school. My 5-year-old son is a student at Hawthorne. Of course he's too young to walk to school now, but in 4-5 years, I'd love to be comfortable enough to let him walk to school. But I hear cars blasting by our house at race-track speeds at least once a day. I am for slower speed limits, particularly around schools, with more cameras to help identify, ticket, and in the most extreme circumstances, apprehend speeding drivers who are putting people and kids in danger.

School pick up/drop off can be chaotic and at times unsafe. What are ways you think this could be improved?

We should work with LSCs to identify strategies to increase school safety that could include blocking off roads to vehicular traffic during drop-off and pick-up hours.

Studies show that childhood independence is critical for individual development. How can Chicago Public Schools better empower families to allow their children to be able to navigate independently – and most importantly, safely – to and from school?

I am a big believer in providing safe places for kids to play and learn social and emotional skills. I recently read a book, "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt, exploring the troubling trend in overparenting and stunted neurological development. For the CPS Board, that could mean designing more adventurous playgrounds, less structured recess, and -- more to the point of this question -- safer streets with lower speed limits that lets kids walk to school for several blocks without parental supervision.

Most CPS students are offered driver's education when the time comes, but few are given the opportunity to learn about alternatives. What kind of educational opportunities around transportation do you think students should have?

I believe every CPS student who is physically able should learn how to drive at 16. In isolation, more kids disinterested in learning to drive could be seen as a uninteresting and perhaps positive development. However, I am concerned this trend reflects a more alarming trend of kids not learning skills that can allow them to be more independent, leading to future mental health concerns.

Increasingly, a lack of busing has become a serious burden for many families’ day-to-day lives as services continue to be cut. What are some short-term and long-term solutions that you think would address this?

The long-term plan to provide busing to schools would first recognize that we need to balance the CPS budget, and that would mean recognizing that we need to consolidate disenrolled schools. We are confronting a $505 billion structural deficit. To close that deficit, we need to make some tough choices. Once we map out a sustainable plan for balancing our budget, I am confident we can find budget space to provide busing for kids, especially for Black and Brown families who send their children to selective enrollment schools.

In the meantime, we can establish central pick up spots for families to drop off their kids for transport to schools outside of their neighborhoods. I had understood that to be the plan for the current academic year, but anecdotal evidence suggests that has not been provided to most families' satisfaction.

For many years now, Chicago Public Schools has failed to meet federally mandated requirements for accessible transportation for students with disabilities. How do you envision ensuring that students with disabilities’ transportation needs are met?

CPS is confronting a rapid rise in special needs kids, and more needs to be done to make certain all of our kids are receiving support they have a legal right to receive. I'll make certain to be responsive to parent complaints, including those involving transportation.