Teaching is a calling.

So if we respect the teachers, they're going to do it.

They love the children.

Most of the teachers are in there for the calling.

So if we back them up in behavior and discipline, that'll improve their lifestyle big time to start with.

And as far as getting them paid more, this goes back to working with our state legislators and senators.

So I just really wanted you to share with us kind of your tenure, if you will, as a substitute and kind of that academy and really just share kind of a fondest moment because that really kind of opened me up.

Yes.

Well, what made me become a substitute after I retired from the Air Force was attending my granddaughter's events at school.

And I'm taking what I observed in the school there and pushing back to when I was a bus driver back in the mid 80s.

And then watching my kids go through with my grandkids, I'm thinking, wait a minute here, we're kind of moving in the wrong direction.

So I became a substitute teacher just to get in and see what's going on behind the curtains.

I subbed at the high, middle, and elementary levels.

How do you take something as that as your background and apply it to, I guess, a board of five and a superintendent? And how do you feel that's kind of led you to be able to lead a group and be able to be an isolated unit of the group?

Well, frankly, I hope to be a spark of improvement.

The endeavor I'm on is definitely long-term, but I hope people watch and see when I get elected that grassroots people can get in there.

And if we start taking care of the people, now this kindergartner, you know, if that kid can make it through the system and have some self-respect and have basic core competencies to be a good young adult and also loves our country, I think we're going to be on a much better footing than we are today, 100%.

So...

What I'm seeing, I know people across the country, you know, as I said, this situation is happening everywhere.

But people are thirsting.