I’m William Peterson but I also answer to Billy. I’m from Pensacola, FL but haven’t been able to call a place truly home until my early adolescence when I moved to Blue Springs, MO and met my future family. I was raised by my Costa Rican mother and her family who instilled in me many hispanic values that I still hold to today. I spent my childhood in Florida, Wyoming, and Costa Rica and came to Blue Springs, MO in my high school years. I graduated from Blue Springs South in May 2008, immediately entered the military in September 2008 and married my wife, Briana, in December 2008. (We crazy, we know). I enjoyed serving my country as a MP and combat arms instructor in the Air Force for 5 years. It was an experience that ended too soon when I was medically discharged following a chronic diagnosis.
Briana and I moved to Colorado where I attended MSU Denver getting my bachelors degree in Computer Information Systems. During which time Briana and I had our first child and I underwent life altering back surgery (another story for another day). When we became pregnant with our second child we found ourselves craving home and being closer to family. So we moved back to Lee’s Summit, MO. We’ve just recently welcomed our 3rd beautiful child and celebrated 14 years of love and commitment to one another. On our small plot of Lee’s Summit land we are working on living a slower life with a community we love, working on our veggie gardening, kid raising, soccer playing, house fixing, project doing, family loving, God learning and life living.

LSR7

https://www.facebook.com/WilliamForLSR7

I have formal professional military training. I have also attained a Bachelors of Science in Information Systems.

My experiences in the School District has primarily been from a spectators perspective. I have been watching and paying attention the last few years and witness a concerted agenda at the BOE level.

The Public School is an indicator of the health of a community. A community that focuses on their children will cultivate strength and necessary aptitudes to find a place for each and every student to transition with the skills to thrive in the community.

Our communities greatest strength is the people and their dedication to the success of the district. Our communities greatest weakness is apathy and people assuming that someone else will do what we all must actively do, participate in the process to ensure the outcome.

The most pressing issue of the district as it pertains to the Schools most certainly is the deviation from academic excellence to our current agenda. The close second would be the sexually explicit material in many books in the school libraries. Honestly though, it seems as though these two things are all part of a greater agenda.

My main goal is to reinstill faith and trust through truth and transparency. I see this succeeding by incorporating stakeholders in the district and exacting pragmatic solutions to difficult issues of the district.

School Board members should be held accountable for stewardship of taxpayer funds, as well as having the best educational interest for each child.

~20 a month

I will engage with the community through social media, as well as face to face discussions. I think it would be prudent to give access to myself, on a monthly basis in an informal group setting to address concerns of constituents,

When I was in School i didn't have access to Neural Networks and AI. I think teaching the next generation how to effectively use these tools is akin to showing someone how to effectively use boolean operators in a search engine.

I think pay and benefits are key to hiring and retaining quality district employees. It is my desire to ensure that we are hiring the best candidate for the job, as this is what our students deserve. I support allocating more resources to retaining quality educators and non-teaching support staff.

I am of the mind that there are too many drawbacks for kids and parents related to a 4 say School Week. I would be open to hearing and seeing what happens in independence and implementing after kinks are ironed out.

I think if the School is allowing certain political clubs and social movements, the School has an obligation to be impartial to clubs and movements of all political persuasions.

I am against corporal punishment in K-12 classrooms.

I think making hardened Schools would be a great deterrent. Schools are targets because they are usually what is considered soft targets.

I think AI will continue to find applications that are pertinent to and can improve the educational learning environments of our students, I don't know if AI will ever or should ever substitute for the human element of learning, but it can and will be a formidable tool in the learning process for generations to come.

I think E-Sports can have great benefits to students who otherwise might not have a community in school.

Sex education, gender ideology, etc.

I think Gender ideology and Cultrural Marxism have no place in Schools.