School should be a place in which every student feels safe. Candidates endorsed by SupportCCS will be committed to creating an environment in which students feel safe from physical and mental harm and feel confident expressing themselves in a judgment-free environment. SupportCCS will promote candidates who partner with and support the Director of Student Services, the specially trained SROs, building safety specialists, counselors, social workers, and all other staff working to foster a safe and non-threatening learning environment for students.

Academic excellence can take many forms. Support CCS aims to endorse school-board candidates who balance the importance of traditional measurements of achievement like standardized test scores and acceptance into institutions of higher education with other metrics of excellence, such as superior achievement in coursework, mastery of vocationally-related skill sets, national and state-level awards for para-curricular accomplishments, etc. We seek to support candidates who hold the view that academic excellence is only achieved when all K-12 students receive plentiful opportunities to develop and fulfill their individual potential.

A better metric would be to compare CCS with local and Indiana schools. Here, as the Indianapolis Star and education-focused website Chalkbeat show, CCS retained a clear lead over many other districts in the state. Indeed, CCS continues to be one of the leading school districts in the country.

Continuing the tradition of academic excellence in Carmel Clay Schools, CCS has announced that Carmel High School has 56 seniors that have been named 2022 National Merit Semifinalists.

I want to focus on the women and men in Carmel who are, day in and day out, in the face of a global pandemic, unprecedented scrutiny and opposition, continuing to show up for our kids. I want to talk about teachers.

Being kind and social and understanding how to get through negative emotions, bad days and stressful interpersonal situations, are life skills that will aid our children not only throughout their time in public school, but well into their adult years.