About Andrew
I’ve spent my career trying to understand what helps students succeed, and what gets in their way.
I started in education as a high school teacher, and over the past 26 years I’ve worked as an educator, researcher, and administrator. Along the way, I earned a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from UNLV and a Ph.D. in Urban Education Policy from USC, where my research focused on education policy, organizations, and the ways decisions made far from the classroom ultimately affect students and educators.
For the past several years, my work has been in California’s community colleges, including Moorpark and Oxnard Colleges and in the Community Colleges of Ventura County’s central office. I now serve as Acting Director of Institutional Research and Planning at Santa Barbara City College, where my work includes strategic planning, accreditation, educational equity, and student success.
But education isn’t only my profession; it’s a part of my family and community life, too. My wife is a VUSD teacher, our son is a VUSD student, and I direct a community concert band through Ventura Adult and Continuing Education. Ventura’s public schools are places where people I love learn, teach, work, make music, and build their lives.
I’m running for the VUSD Board of Trustees because I think I can help. School boards face difficult questions about budgets, staffing, student achievement, equity, and the long-term health of their districts. I know how to ask good questions, make sense of complicated information, and keep the people affected by those decisions at the center of them.
I don’t expect to arrive on the board with all the answers. I do expect to listen carefully, do my homework, and work constructively with educators, staff, families, students, and the rest of the board. I’d be honored to have the opportunity.
