Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So that was some time ago, and now they reduce the amount of time. And then according to Amy and some other reporting, the school board is thinking about eliminating altogether public comments. In fact, Mansfield, the chair, I saw in the news that she said, well, having parents commenting, it's. It's a privilege, not a right by the Virginia Constitution. No, the school board have to provide a. An outlet for public comments.
And it's being a public servant. The way they're doing it is an oxymoron because you are serving the public, but you don't want to hear what the public has to say. So who are you really serving? Because right now we have high schools and middle schools that have SROs, security forces, or people from the sheriff's department, and they have a great program to include there. And I can, you know, you can search online what the their program is, which is mentors from the law enforcement, teaching, you know, drug prevention and things like that.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Oh, that's nice.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they have a great comprehensive plan, and we have a way that we can do it in a financially affordability way, but the school board is not taking that into consideration. I'm very troubled by that because the high schools and middle schools are protected, but elementary schools are not buying from the school boards. So I find that very curious. And I want to pull that thread and learn more about it and know what are the arguments against protecting our children. I don't understand it. It doesn't pass the common sense test.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Hello, I'm your host, Krishna Kart. Welcome to the Learning by Design podcast.
Today I'm joined by Santos Munoz, candidate for the Loudoun County School Board, representing the Dallas district.
A retired U.S. air Force officer, dedicated public servant, and chair of the Education Committee on Virginia's Latino Advisory Board, Santos brings a life of service to his campaign. So we're here to talk about his story, his stance on education, and his vision for Loudoun County Standard. Stay tuned.
Hello. So thank you so much for coming, Santos.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah, we really appreciate your time and, you know, we wanted to steward our votes and wisely. And as you know, our listeners are into education, so this is a chance for the voters to get to know you. Like, I've been here in Loudoun county and I haven't seen or even shook any hand of Loudoun County School Board.
So I'm so glad that the current.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Member you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised. It's a very common comment I hear when I meet voters.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: So talk about your.
You were born in Carolina, Puerto Rico?
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Well, yeah, so. So I'm born, raised in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
That's the town where the airport when you go to San Juan, that's the town that you visit is Carolina. And no, it was a great upbringing.
I can only say only good things through school, whether I was in the boy Scouts, which was one of the best things. And the one pivotal thing that happened was one of the first classes, which was citizenship to get that particular award. And. And that kind of left the mark that is throughout my career and the military career and everything.
That sense of patriotism and service to others that was planted while I was in the boy scouts. So I'm very grateful for that.
But, yeah, normal upbringing. My mom and dad are also from Puerto Rico.
They were born and raised there.
They traveled to New York a couple times in business and everything. In fact, my mom and my dad both met in New York and then they got married and moved to Puerto Rico and that was where I was born.
So everyone in Puerto Rico is a US Citizen. As a result of the Spanish American War in 1898, when a gentleman named Luis Munoz negotiated the peace treaty between the United States and Spain and Paris and very savvy, recognized at that time they were going to give Cuba freed freedom from Spain or secession from Spain. But he negotiated. He was from Puerto Rico. He negotiated Puerto Rico being part of the payment from Spain to the United States. And that's how Puerto Rico became territory of the United States. It has been like that ever since.
But then in 1917, under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, I believe. Yeah, that's when by legislation, congress authorized citizenship retroactively to 1898.
So Puerto Ricans have been U. S. Citizens ever since.
So, yeah, but yeah, they. My dad was a businessman.
My mom went there to live with my grandmother that was living there from Puerto Rico. Went there and they met and fell in love, got married and my mom said, hey, I want to go back to Puerto Rico. And there I was born and my siblings and it was a normal childhood.
It was great upbringing.
But ever since I can remember, I was a dreamer. I wanted to be an astronaut or I wanted to see the.
The sands of the middle east or the mountains of Colorado and. Or just gold built buildings in Europe and. Or just the eight, you know, the east, Japan and. And I was the dreamer. I was always looking even though I was in an island paradise, you know, over 200 miles of ocean, you know, surrounding the island for beach and recreation. I. My head was always looking at all the locations that I read and things like that.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: So how old were you when you were. When you came here in the US So.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: So I. I graduated high school, went to college, and while I was in the ROTC program, University of Puerto Rico. Once I commissioned, I.
I got my orders to go to California as a second lieutenant. And that was 1996.
So that since 1996, however, I still have family in New York, Florida and other places. So it was very normal for my family to go to New York or Florida or my relatives moving from there back to Puerto Rico. So going back and forth from Puerto Rico and the United States was a normal thing. I mean, almost a yearly thing for vacation or Christmas, things like that.
So, yeah, it was.
It was not a.
It was a culture shock as an adult. Now I'm by myself, second lieutenant going to California, and I have to figure things out. Leaving in the United States, that was my first time. But visiting and all that stuff, that was a common occurrence in my family.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: So what kind of values did your family instill in you growing up? And I didn't know if you talk about, like, how many siblings do you have? And then if you are like the oldest, because sometimes, you know, like, I'm the oldest, we're both oldest, and, you know, the oldest are like, so.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: So my family, it's big. My immediate family is big. So my dad was a widow, widower when he met my mom in New York. So my dad had from the first marriage. My dad, the first wife, passed away from cancer.
So he had four children there, and they were significantly older.
I mean, they were already married and with kids when my dad met my mom.
So from. So I'll be the fourth in line, but the first and oldest between the marriage between my father and my mother. And then after me, there's a younger sister and brother.
I would say yes. I always consider myself the older of in the house and as such, some responsibility. Especially when my father died of cancer. I was only 16.
Oh, so. Yeah, I know. So I was. Yeah. In 11th grade and senior year was very difficult for me because my dad was my hero.
And even though I have a short span of getting to know my dad, he made a lasting imprint in values such as hard work, dedication.
He was big on taking chances. Entrepreneur. He was a businessman. He was a Army veteran, but he also had, after the army, businesses and things like that. So he had that entrepreneurial spirit.
But by the time I was born, he was pretty much retired.
So it was great having my dad and my mom at Home as I was growing up, and my siblings as well. But yeah, that dedication to God and country, meaning service, it was instilled in me from very early in, compounded by my service in the Boy Scouts.
That was another event that has shaped my whole worldview ever since I joined and to the point that I continued to serve in scouting while still in college. I was an assistant Scout master in the troop I belonged to and trying to pay forward. There's always a need to teach others and pay it forward.
That's why I was drawn to the military, because it's one of those events that are careers in which it's not for your own sake, it's for the greater good. And it was a natural calling and one that I heard very loud early on.
And it was really a given. If you talk to my friends and family, people around me growing up, yeah, it was a given that I was going to join the military service or the Peace Corps, it would be something like that.
So I'm very grateful for that and those values and piety.
My mom was very religious. Still is. She's 84 right now.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Oh, there.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. She's still in Puerto Rico with my sister and other family members.
So it was. It was a wonderful upbringing.
My house still to this day, where my mom live, there's my house, one house. And then next to it is the church. So we really close. I mean, that doesn't prevent us to be late sometimes to go to church. But we were really close. And it was a very.
One of those communities in which, if I was with my friends running bikes around the neighborhood and probably doing something we're not supposed to throw in rocks or whatever, a mom over there would say, hey, kids, and. And call me out, you know, kick us out, back to the home. And then they will call my mom and I will get talking to as well.
So it was, as they say, it takes a village. That was my upbringing in the 80s.
I'm a generation X type of kid.
So, yeah, that was my upbringing, you.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Know, so it's very conservative, you know, a lot of values. It seems like your parents did a great job.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: I think, for the most part, people in Puerto Rico, I can just speak for what I know.
They are very conservative.
They don't want to be too much government intervention.
They like to work hard.
They are people that are very pious, religious, and they try to have that sense of community, of the greater good. At least that was my experience growing up around a lot of my neighbors. You know, that whenever I go home they say, hey, how are you doing? You know, how are things going? And things like that. So it's.
And they enjoy each other's kids. You know, we're talking about my parents in that generation.
When kids come back to visit where our parents live, same, same area, they, they love the fact that they, they can go and, and enjoy each other's kids achievements or, or, or certificates or whatever. It's, It's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful community.
Very good place.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I hope we could go back to that era, right?
[00:13:55] Speaker A: No, yeah, we. I try to get it as much as I can because of work and things like that is not always possible, but either a year or every two years, I try to because my wife is from Puerto Rico too, and her story and upbringing is very similar to mine.
So we try to take vacation times, go home and also visit our parents and make sure that our kids that grew up in the military have a little bit of insight and flavor of what it was like for mom and dad growing up and things like that. That was always been very important to us. You know that.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Tracing the roots and culture tie.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Right? It's tracing the roots because nowadays, especially here in Northern Virginia area, the culture is different.
You cannot see that culture anymore.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. And it's, it's funny you say that. I mean, probably we can talk more in details, but when I received orders to. Because before coming here, I moved to here in same area because we're neighbors when we live nearby in the Dulles district in Loudoun county. When I received orders in 2014 to move from Colorado to Virginia to do my Pentagon tour.
Up to that point, I chose to come to Dulles to Loudoun county because of the schools. That time school had very good reputation and so we moved but a, a year or two. When you say that with kids and ties to culture, my kids grew up knowing that they were Americans. That's it. There's no much. I mean, we like we to say, yeah, we, we are Americans by birth, but Puerto Rican by the race of grace of God. So, so that, that's, that's what they. When we got here a couple years later, they were asking questions that I never heard from them, like who am I? What am I? And things like that. And that was probably the first. I didn't know it at the time. We're talking about 2016, 2017. I didn't know.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: How old are your kids now?
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Huh?
[00:16:05] Speaker B: How old are your kids now?
[00:16:06] Speaker A: My oldest, 25 and my youngest is 21. Two girls.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: So but when we got here in 2014, my oldest was in high school.
She went to John Champ High School. And my youngest was in middle school. So she went to Mercer Middle School and continued to graduate to John Champ. And now she's in college. William and Mary. So very proud of both of them.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Yeah, smart.
So let's talk about your education and early ambition. So why did you choose to pursue business and labor relations at the Inter American University, Puerto Rico?
[00:16:46] Speaker A: So to be an officer you have to have a bachelor's degree. So I wanted to.
So when I entered college, I went in an associate's program. I didn't know exactly I was going to be the first one in my family from my older siblings, including going to college. So my dad didn't go to college, neither did my mom.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Your first generation.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Correct. And so at that time, we're talking about 1980s. 89. Yeah, 1990, there was no Internet, so it was hard. I unfortunately didn't have a good school counselor, so it was very hard to get information or see what my path was. Growing up, I dreamed of being an astronaut, but I didn't know how to get there. I mean, I saw movies and things like that.
So I went and at the last minute, pretty much that's a longer story. But I joined the University of Puerto Rico in one of the associates programs. And then when I learned about, I just for a friend of mine, they point me out to the ROTC program or building in campus and check it out. I register. And then that's when I saw a lot of kids.
Although I had great relationships, still do with my high school friends. And in college in the rotc, I met a different kind of breed of kids that were pretty much dreamers like me on the military and those type of things.
Fans of the movie Top Gun, things like that. So it was another level of bonding and connection that it was great. I didn't know I needed that. And we push each other up to all get commission in the ROTC program. So those lifelong friendships is something I treasure.
So yeah, so I went there. I switched associates because it was in business. I continued with the business administration that way.
And then I had to leave the ROTC program.
So for a couple years. So I finished my bachelor's degree, but then I went back to the ROTC program when my bachelor's degree was completed. But you needed two years to complete the last two years. You need to be full time student in order to complete the last two years of rotc. So at that time I Had the bachelor to get. Well, let me join a master's program. I went to the Inter American University. They had a program that. It was very appealing labor relationship. And it was very short in duration because I didn't want to overextend past two years. I wanted something that was exactly two years so I can complete the master's degree and then get commission and going with a master's degree program. And so I did. That's. That's why I picked that one because it was close association with business.
I understand the struggle of the worker and some of those nuances of collecting, bargaining and, and how valuable it is to have adequate representation when appropriate from the business perspective as well as the worker class.
Those are very vital and important things in our society. That was calling to me in the degree. That's why I chose labor relations in that regard.
Commissioned and then was shipped to be a space and missile officer within the Air Force.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it seems like I can see that you really are a goal setter.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can say that.
When you say goal setter. I would say yeah, I wanted to serve and do something for the greater good.
But I didn't know like I want to have this particular rank or I want to do this particular career field.
Those things happen. And I try to work my best to do whatever God was putting in front of me and thank God for the skills and the blessings I've received in life and the education.
I was able to meet the challenge at the moment in time in order to have a very successful career.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: So looking back, how did your education influence your outlook or on leadership and service?
Like, I know you've talked about so much on that, so how do you think it impacted, you know, your leadership and service? And I know it seems like part of it.
You. It's kind of like following the footsteps of your. Of your father.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yes, that is correct. It seems like I. Because I lost my father so early 16, as I mentioned, I. I always look for paternal figures in the military, you know, leaders. I was drawn to reading the biographies of like, like General Patton, World War II, because my dad was a World War II veteran. So. So it was.
That was. That period of history was very fascinating for me. So. So I looked at people like Eisenhower, people like that.
And by reading their biographies and exploits, I got a sense of leadership also maybe being the oldest in the family and then taking a more active role to protect my siblings when my dad passed away. That in itself, it's a leadership role post or leadership lessons as well. As in the Boy Scouts, going through those ranks and being in charge of all the kids, teaching them first aid and things like that, that was also leadership. So when I say leadership, I don't equate that to education is more a set of experiences in life.
And you also have to have something that God gives you in order to be an effective communicator and also to take bold decisions. Because when it comes to leadership, again, I'm coming from a military background.
The most important things of a leader is two things. If you want to, you know, boil into the most simple thing is to make a decision and maintain guru and discipline. Those are the most essential traits of a leader. And how you do that is always very depending on the type of teammates or subordinates that you have in your team or in your unit.
You also, you cannot be very like a dictator when the your teammates are very self sufficient and reliant. So you always have to tailor your leadership style based on the people that you have under your supervision or you alongside of you as teammates.
It all depends. You have to leverage the skills and talents that people have in order to achieve whatever objectives you have in life and business, in sports, you name it.
So it was. My leadership doesn't come directly from academic studies. It's more observing, learning, asking questions. I ask a lot of questions to people.
And that shapes your worldview to a degree. And also because there are certain things that you're born with and you're quite culture and your upbringing from your parents, that shapes your worldview. But also what you observe and what you think that's effective, that is ineffective.
That's what shaped my leadership style and predisposition to help others and take active roles in anything I set out to do.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Right.
I'm thinking the life circumstances that God put in your life, like being like 16 years old and you assume almost like the father role image in your house. So that's what I get from your narrative. Is that correct?
[00:25:00] Speaker A: That is correct. That's correct.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:03] Speaker C: Well, I was just.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: You.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: In regards to your service in the Air Force, do you have any defining moments during that journey?
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Oh, yes, for years.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: No, there's, there's a lot. Obviously.
Unfortunately, not everything can be said because many of the stuff I've dealt with from day one was top secret.
When you're doing the work with nuclear weapons, everything that you do is classified almost instantly.
Say again?
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Nuclear weapons.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So my first assignment coming out of officer training was Minot, North Dakota via a missile launch officer. So quickly I went through and became squadron lead. And then the big organization will be the entire group or wing.
So when we went to the field, I was in charge of, at the beginning of one launch control center, me and my crew partner, and we have 10 missiles which are somewhat about three nautical miles from each of the launch control center with underground cabling, everything to connect with those. And each missile had that time, three nuclear weapons. So eventually I became to be the wing lead in the alternate command post in Minot.
And that would be 15 capsules, each one with 10 missiles.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: So that was. It's a very, very early on, instant responsibility and, and especially when it comes to weather. I mean, winters in North Dakota are very brutal. And sometimes you have to ask people to risk their life to go and check a security situation somewhere which is three or five miles away. And that young security officer team have to go there and you know that the elements are not in their favor. But we have brave men and women to this day are sitting on alert, watching America from a strategic deterrence point of view and peaceful strength.
And my hat goes out to all those young men and women out there that is to this day are sitting on alert watch, keeping us safe. So special shout out to the 741st Missile Squadron in North Dakota. That was my first squadron.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Thank you so much for your service. I don't think you know. Yeah, so.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: But to answer the question you mentioned, one significant event that I did during my time in the Air force was in 2008. And I can say that because it's completely unclassified now.
If you your listeners Google or search Operation Burn Frost, the name was called later on. So I was the CO lead, Me and another army guy, we were the lead for this problem set. So let me go back In December of 2017, the United States launched a rocket with a special big satellite. The satellite was about the size of a Greyhound bus. But that satellite failed to reach orbit. So it became an uncontrollable satellite. No power or anything. It was completely dead. So inside that satellite there was a gas tank made of titanium, like a big sphere, about the size of a dinner table that held about, I want to say, 10,000 pounds of hydrogen, which is a gas that is used to maintain station keeping while satellites in orbit.
The concern there is that it was in a decaying orbit. So as it was going around the Earth, it was getting closer and closer and closer. So eventually we'll reenter the atmosphere. It will land somewhere in the world nobody knew where. Right.
But the concern was that that tank of gas made of titanium could survive reentry, would land in the ground somewhere. If it was a heavy populated area, it will crack like an egg. And those 10 pounds of. 10,000 pounds of hydrogen will dissipate. And. And it was 20 times more lethal than cyanide. So the concern of the threat of the human life was immense. So at the time, President Bush ordered, okay, I want that problem to go away.
So when that decision was made, I happened to be in Puerto Rico on vacation. So my wife walking the beach, I remember. And then my boss called me and my cell phone, I pick it up and say, hey, Santos, you know, when are you coming back from leave? I'm like, well, sir, I'll be there maybe a day or two. Because, I mean, I already had the tickets and everything. So it's like, as soon as you get home, you come directly to the office.
You have a task.
So he couldn't tell me more than that, but I knew it was very serious. So when I got back, you know, put my wife home and kids and everything, put my uniform, go to the office, and I got the briefing that. Of what I just told you at that time was all very classified.
So I said, you have to get working. And it was me and another army guy. We decided to try to figure it out. So eventually what we decided to do was to divide Operation Ben Frost in two phases.
Phase one was trying to engage it with a. With a missile from an Aegis Cruiser and intercepted. Imagine you are in, let's say, Ashburn, and we're here in South Riding. So just imagine a person launching a firearm in the air, and then someone in Ashburn launches another firearm. Imagine those two bullets trying to meet in the air. That's the level of complexity that we were trying to fix. First time ever doing that.
So, yeah, it was just a bullet hitting another bullet somewhere in between the two launch points. Hopefully it will. It will happen. That. That's kind of level.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: That is so cool.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: I know.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: A movie, huh? Yeah. Did they turn. They should turn it into a movie.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: They should turn in a movie. Especially when.
When we launched, when we did that, we calculated. I mean, we were leading about 200 experts from 14 different organizations around the globe trying to figure this one out. So it was around the clock from. From December when I got back home, until the actual launch was in February 2018.
Although. 2008. I'm sorry, 2008. So during the whole time, it was like 24 7. I did not see my wife pretty much because I would work about, you know, 15 hours, then go home, rest for a while, and then go back again. And then my crew partner, the army major, we were offset so we can do around the clocks because it could have landed anywhere in the planet. So we needed to talk to people in one side of the world and when they were going to sleep, the other side of the world was getting up. So I had to coordinate with them what they were going to do. It was around the clock effort.
So we figured it out, we knew what to do.
My wife was very upset because we like, what are you doing that you're never home? If I couldn't tell her.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Even to your wife you cannot?
[00:32:59] Speaker A: No, no, I couldn't.
It was all classified. But the funny thing is when we had the plan and we calculated when would be the last revolution in which it would enter. And we knew it was going to come somewhere in the Pacific. So the plan was to get an Aegis Cruiser, which is a Navy ship off the coast of Hawaii.
And we modified a specific missile that they have, they call it Standard Missile 3. So they reconfigure their algorithm to kind of intercept that because normally those missiles are designed to intercept something in ballistic trajectory, not something coming from air orbit in an unconventional type of reentry, if you will. So, yeah, we did all that. I mean, we have people from NASA. In fact, NASA published an article that they were. The magazine was the NASA Ask, I think it was, is the name called, in which they did the power of networking because they were very impressed on the way we kind of communicated with, you know, like I said twice, 200 people, 14 different government agencies around the clock. So we figure out way to communicate effectively and try to organize ourselves because I mean, everybody had an idea. So you have to, as the team leads, we had to be this discern, okay, you do this good idea, but we're moving with this other idea.
It was hard but very gratifying type of thing. So the funny thing is that when we finally had the, the plan, we brief it to the general officers, we had to go to Congress to ask for the money to do everything that we needed to do. And within an hour of the one general that was selected to go and brief Congress, it was all over cnn.
So.
So I was like, oh, wow.
I know. So, but, but how that happened, I don't know. So what I did, because now I couldn't tell her, but I. My wife called, say, hey, go ahead and turn the TV right now, please.
And I was like, what time you're coming home? Like, I Cannot tell you, but can you do me a favor and please turn on the phone? The tv? So she turned the TV on, sure enough, the new. Because it was all over the news almost immediately, all the channels.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: So what time, what date is that? Do you remember the day that was.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: February, the beginning of February of 28,008.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Because the engagement, I forgot the date, but it was. It was early February 2008. So you can probably search online and you'll see it. The name of the satellite was USA 193 is the. The specific serial number of that satellite. So. But anyway, so my wife turns it on and I can see here on the other side of the phone like, oh, okay, I get it. So don't screw up. Okay. And then she just hung up because she's a. At that moment in time, she understood everything that I've been doing for, you know, since December.
Missing school, picking up my daughters or anything. I couldn't help because I was working on this at that time, secret project. But no, it was great because when you say about, you know, the essence of a movie. So we knew what the last orbit was going to be, more or less the time period. But the problem is that in orbit at that level orbit, it takes 45 minutes to go to the same location because it's going really fast around the Earth. So we couldn't wait for the last rotation because at that time there was a storm coming in Hawaii. So by the time, 45 minutes later, the storm will be in the position where the Aegis Cruiser was going to be. So they had to launch one orbit shy of the full re entry. So they did. And I was in the command center in California, Vandenberg for Space Space Force Base now. And my boss calls me up. I see the. There was an.
It was no explosion. It was pure kinetic. It was a missile impact this particular payload. But they put a electro optical seeker or like a camera, so to speak. And it was put in real telemetry to the center where I was. I was next to my boss and. And all I see is pitch black. And also you see a white dot in the middle of nowhere and. And it gets closer and closer and all of a sudden you see that. The silhouette of the satellite we're trying to hit. And it hit right where the tank is. So we knew that immediately. We achieved mission success and no threat for humankind. It was a great feeling. So that would be the crown jewel of all the things that I've done that is unclassified.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: That is so cool.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I'm glad you like the story.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: I think that's gonna be the central of this, of the podcast would be that I think I, I'm gonna attach something like whenever I make podcasts I, there's always like a blog accompanied to it.
So I might attach the blog.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: Oh yeah, no, there's plenty of footage on Operation Burn Frost and articles and things like that. So yeah, I, I, I, I'm sure you're gonna have like the, the, the banner on, on any particular news, guys? Emergency update or breaking news. You'll have that, that will be a good see, a good thing to see.
[00:38:33] Speaker C: I was just thinking what you shared about collaboration comes in very handy in regards to, you know, governmental office.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:43] Speaker C: And say like a school board.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you're going to hit, I'm thinking, I think God put those ones in your path. I don't know what, what type of, you know, task you lay ahead of you in this school board.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: It's not a, it's not going to be an easy task because the school board here, Loudoun county, as you pro, as you know, has been in the, not only news here locally in Virginia, but in the national news as well. There has been a lot of problems for a lot of years since COVID I would say it's always making the national news. Enough of the good things that they do because there's a lot of good things that the Loudoun county school board or the Loudoun county public system is doing. But it hits the news for some more controversial things that has happened. And unfortunately if you do the root cause analysis and some of those problems is nine times out of 10, it's related to a policy that the school board has generated not in the best interest of the public and the students and the teachers, but more like either a social experiment or special interest based on social engineering or you name it.
Different motivation for different people.
I cannot judge them.
I kind of believe, or want to believe that the things that they have done is because they believe the right thing to do.
However, going back to military terms, whenever you launch a missile or something in the military, we always say you need to be aware of the secondary tertiary effects of that particular weapon being employed. And I don't think in the case of the school board, whenever they launch a particular policy, I don't think they did the full thought pattern or a good method of data driven decision making that they can assess what will be the impact of that particular piece of policy or guidance.
Obviously we're seeing it because of the Fruit. It has generated in particular interest or recent.
You probably know the story on. In the news about.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: That's what I want to ask you.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: Yeah, the. The three boys that they just made a comment on or a female student there. In, In. In there.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Tell about us. Tell about that maybe, because I don't think the media covered it, and I know you were there. I, I, we were not there because we were in. I believe we were. We were in another event on Tuesday. I think it was Museum of the Bible.
[00:41:38] Speaker C: I do remember hearing the. Over the basic.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I believe Pastor Gary Hamrick asked us to go there.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a couple of weeks ago. Just yesterday. I was there for another engagement in public comments.
The school board meets twice a month, second and last Tuesday of the month.
So this yesterday was an event, but I guess a couple of weeks before that, that was another event, which it was after a sermon given by the pastor on that. On the public comments on that particular meeting.
There was a lot of folks there trying to speak their concerns as a, as community members on the school board and their rejection of Policy 8040, which is.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So maybe can you please elaborate on that and then give the context of our, you know, because we did not know it until Pastor Gary Hemrick talks about, you know, RA 8040. So if you can please kind of like, give us a context for those who knew.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Yes, of course.
[00:42:50] Speaker B: 8040.
And then what happened, like, with those, you know, with the girls identifying as boys.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: Correct. So the policy A040 8040 was enacted by this current school board around 2021.
My understanding was that it's specifically written and designed to protect children that have gender dysphoria.
They believe that they were born or are in a body different than what they were given to. To them at birth. So that's kind of the, The. The genesis of that particular piece of policy.
My understanding is that the current chair, who happens to be sitting in the Dulles district position, which I'm seeking to be elected to, she has what I've seen in news. She had. She has, I guess, a transgender niece.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Oh, what's her name? So the one who's sitting right now in our.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Ms. Melinda Mansfield, is her name.
The, the. The school board chair and the member representing us here in the Dulles district. Oh, no, they're supposed to be representing us. So.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Misinformation.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: Yeah. No, so. So she's, she's the, The. Not only the chair, but the representative for Dulles, and she's, as I understand it, is the main force that came up with this policy and enacted the policy.
Not every member in the school board is a school board in London County. And you had them the podcast with Amy Ricardo.
She did a very good explanation. I remember seeing the podcast in which she's run down the. Where the Loudoun County Division of school is and all those things. And she gave a lot of statistics on that. So I will direct your viewers to go back and watch that interview with Amy. Ricardi is phenomenal. She's great leader. Hopefully she will also. She's running for office for the Sterling district. I'm running for officer in Dallas district.
So she's a phenomenal leader. Hope she gets elected. And I hope I get elected too.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Of course we want you to get elected.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Yes. So. So. So.
So they. They.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: She.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: Ms. Mansfield has a niece that is transgender. You know, has gender dysphoria and empathic about the situation. I think she was inspired to kind of fuel the policy and write it. However, the problem is that it's a specific piece of policy that is to addressing that particular population, which is less than 1% of the total student body.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: Right. And then itself is. I don't even know why they should be helping them like in counseling. Not that.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, me personally, had I been there.
So this is one of the problems I have with this particular policy. Specific for one sector of students, which we all should love and encourage to find their goal in life and provide a good education. I mean, I love all kids. It doesn't matter if they are.
They have a medical condition, whether it's mental or physical.
We should love and care for every child, regardless of either their gender or ethnicity or religion, race. It doesn't matter. I mean children, our children. My job, if elected, is to protect and provide a safe environment for every single child. It's. That's. Period and discussion. Drop the mic. That's. That's it. However, this particular piece of policy provided an extra measure for children that have that particular set of circumstances in life in which they believe they are of the opposite gender. As.
As they were biologically. They are. So the. The.
I believe she was empathy of that struggle, but she created a policy that people like myself are critical of. Not because we don't like those type of children. It's because the policy, the way it was written, it has a lot of loopholes. And children like happened in 2021, there are boys that will take advantage of the loopholes in that particular policy and they will go into private spaces of girls. And there was Two sexual assault cases in that at that time frame in which a boy identified as a girl, went to a woman's bathroom, assaulted one girl in one school, then the kid was transferred. And that was not transparent to the parents. The community. Large.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: That was the Stone Bridge, right?
[00:48:11] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: That was the Stone Bridge High School.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So. So, so then goes to another school and then the boy does the same thing. Because of that particular policy and the abuse of it, I would say repeal the entire policy and they just encourage kids that have gender dysphoria to use other mechanisms already in place, like the American Disability act, you know, section 504 or IAP. They are other mechanisms that can provide protection and also a safe environment for those children, regardless of the medical condition. I mean, it doesn't matter. But they should have just continued. That particular population could have used those existing programs that are federally regulated and have reasonable accommodations to the set of circumstances. I don't think that creating a policy just for that particular population of kids was wise. And like I mentioned earlier, they did not anticipate the secondary or tertiary order effects from that particular ill conceived policy. That is my criticism.
But again, we, I cannot insist and explain this enough. We love all children and those kids with their particular struggles in life should be welcome, safe and all the civil liberties of every child and adult talking about the professionals that take care of our kids and provide a good education.
Those civil liberties have to be protected at all costs. We have laws at the state and federal level that provides that and there should be procedures in case those civil liberties are discriminated against in which we can take action and continue to provide a safety, healthy environment for. For everybody to thrive.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So what's the. Give us an update now because I know you've spoke, you've spoken last time there. What's the.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: So whenever an opportunity it is, and I hear from parents and even teachers around the Dulles District, I try to to get from them what their concerns are and provide that voice of common sense for parents and teachers and even students.
Today I was meeting a young man that is a product of Loudoun county schools and just graduated from George Mason University. And he was sharing with me some of his concern when he was going to school and the lack of meritocracy.
He's from Indian descent, so he was saying how sometimes he felt like he had to work.
And I have felt that too, you know, twice as hard to be half as good. Even though he was, he had the credentials. He felt that there were some discriminatory Actions to go to like Thomas Jefferson and things like that, again, as a result of different school bodies. But as they relate to Loudoun county, he felt that the hard work he was doing was not recognized because of providing special accommodation for all their type of students. When, when you work hard, you just, I mean, you should read what you sow. So, so he was very concerned about those things. But in the case of the policy, the latest and greatest is that we're still in effect, I voice my, my opinion about it not necessarily because it's against any particular group of children. It's about the ill conceived way in which the policy was issued and not enacting or encouraging already pre existing processes in order to have a reasonable accommodation and protection for any marginalized group, whether it's medically or, or, or, or, or any other type of situation. So that's, that's my criticism and I think it should be repealed, eliminated, and then just continue with the normal processes. However, I'm asking because it, it would not happen with the current people there. So I'm asking them at least just take a vote so people know where you're standing. At least open the discussion to make a revision based on the circumstances and the cases that have been brought to justice. And so now all the way up to, I guess the Attorney General of the United States, per the Attorney General, Virginia. So, so these are things that, that they have done and created and for whatever reason, they don't listen to what parents and concerned citizens are saying. And that's the state of affairs as a protection right now in the month of June of 2025.
So we'll see that happens next.
[00:53:15] Speaker C: Just the aspect about parental rights, you've touched on that. And just the aspect about how to wisely handle that matter in the school board realm.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: So I'm so glad you're listening to.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: The parents though, because you know.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: Correct. And, and that, and that is the, I think that is the cross of the matter.
So in fact, Amy Riccardi in, in the meeting that we had yesterday and she made a phenomenal argument on the lack of transparency and engagement from the school board representative to the constituency.
She said that many, if not all of them, but for sure the majority that are pushing some of that ill conceived policy that I talked about, they don't do newsletters, they don't go and have town halls, they don't engage with the community that they're supposedly representing. So they are pretty much isolated in the ivory tower and they're a group of elitists that they believe they are right in all circumstances, which is not. And so they have rejected the notion that they, the parents, have a say in what happens to their own children.
And that is the major disconnect between the current leaders in the school board and people like myself that we say, no, you work for the parents.
They are the taxpayers. If you put in a business perspective, because that's my background, too, any company, whoever is paying is right. You should listen to that. I mean, because what we do, the customer, is not the kids, it's the parents.
We parents pay taxes to allow the government to develop a curriculum to teach our children and have the infrastructure for that. Right.
But in this case, they don't listen to the customer. We're saying, okay, there's a problem. It's affecting my child. And how dare you, school board or the government overthrow my concerns or make a decision contradicting to what I want for my own child?
And that disconnect is getting larger and larger. Larger. Case in point, the school board had a retreat on Monday, and what we hear and was highlighted by Amy Ricardi yesterday, they are considering. Because they took away the cameras in the school boards, right? Oh, they.
Yeah. So you can't see what's happening or when. When parents.
[00:56:06] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: In public comments. So that was some time ago. And now they reduce the amount of time. And then, according to Amy and some other reporting, the school board is thinking about eliminating altogether public comments. In fact, Mansfield, the chair, I saw in the news that she said, well, having parents commenting, it's a privilege, not a right by the Virginia Constitution. No, the school board have to provide an outlet for public comments. And.
And it's being a public servant.
The way they're doing it is an oxymoron because you are serving the public, but you don't want to hear what the public has to say. So who are you really serving? So it is. It is a frustrating thing for me as a parent, for me as a taxpayer, and so hopefully for you, too, and the people listening, that they are not living up to the standard that is expected of them as public servants.
Again, they're making that adjective, you know, that noun, an oxymoron, because they don't care about the public and they're not serving anyone but themselves.
So it is very frustrating. It's one of the things that, as I entered this race trying to provide the greater good for my community, Dulles district, I see more of that, and it's irritating. The fact that they don't have that commitment of helping others is all about self serving platitudes and some sort of power trip in my opinion.
[00:57:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that's so authoritarian and that's a very good way.
And into going after a position, elected position there on the school board is that you promote transparency.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Whenever, like the last couple of times I've gone and spoken in, in the public comment section, I try to go into social media outlets or platforms and exactly. Post exactly what I just said and transcribed. I did it last night or this morning from the last night's speech. And yeah, no, you should be transparent and you and you should be accessible to those you serve, which they don't. At least that's a key. I mean it's access. If you don't do town halls, you don't do newsletter, you don't have means to receive information and have a dialogue for those you serve.
How can you really serve in the capacity that you were elected?
[00:58:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: I mean from my point of view, from my vantage point is self serving for them. And if elected, that's not at all what I'm going to be doing. I mean I believe in leadership by walking around. And what I mean by that is if you are responsible for a mission, people or assets, you want to be there. Not virtually, but present.
Virtually present is the same as actually absent. So you have to be there with the people, ask questions and make sure things are working correctly. Right. At least that's how I grew up in the military from the leadership point of view. So why would you not go out into the, you know, do town halls and engage with people in an open and honest way if you're doing something that they are objectifying that you shouldn't be doing, you need to know that. But also, you know, if there are things that you're not doing that they want you to do, you need to be accessible to receive that feedback and do something for your constituents. See, it's as simple as that.
The chair is not doing it. Many of the other members are not doing it. And although the chair is not seeking reelection, it's going to be a vacant seat. My understanding is that they're looking for.
She's looking and some of the people that got her elected are looking for someone that can be just like her. And I could not be any more different or opposite of what she is. And whoever they are, a parent might be. I don't know that person might be or people I don't know.
[01:00:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we want transparency. I mean, you know.
[01:00:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[01:00:28] Speaker B: Transparency and accessibility.
[01:00:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. Transparency and accountability.
Those things go Hand in hand. So you, you, you. It's fine if you make. I don't expect in, in my experience in leadership, no one is infallible. You will make mistakes. You need to own them and then make corrections and amends for whatever you did wrong.
Because again, I'm a flawed person.
I'm not perfect. But I want to make sure that I'm accountable for the things I do and say. And that was transparency is all about accountability for when you make a mistake. Own it, but fix it.
Don't, don't just hide it or anything like that.
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So I was like, kind of like browsing through your kind of like Facebook post and then you reference somewhere about the 2025 federal ruling and Governor Youngkin's guidance.
So can you talk a little bit about that? And why do you believe the Loudoun County Public school has not allied with those like what is that federal 2000, the federal ruling.
[01:01:43] Speaker A: So there was a case that was went to federal court in which I think it's all related to Policy 8040 in which they determined that, you know, there.
And executive orders from the current administration at the federal level that determined that, you know, you know, you're.
They're boys and girls, male and female. That's how we were born.
It has nothing to do with theology. It's all basically basic science and biology.
There was a court ruling at the federal level that talked about that. And also there were mirror policies that our current governor instituted by his power of the pen and executive orders do that provide parents rights or restitute them or put them in more emphasis creating a safe space for all type of children. Right.
So it seem even though that those mandates have come from the federal level and also at the state level, the school board has not reacted to it. All the school boards or school divisions they have but Loudoun county has not. They have doubled down in a refusal of taking action or pivot to whatever is in law or by executive decision they don't want to. And now the problem with that, I want to say that Amy probably touched on that when you refuse for instance federal guidelines. And it has been stated by the federal authorities.
[01:03:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:28] Speaker A: That you're putting a risk money somewhere around the vicinity of $48 million. Most of that money goes to Title 1 schools. Title 1 school is a school that a majority of the population live below poverty lines. So it provides food and breakfast for those children.
Also fuels or funds federal programs such as the Junior ROTC program which if you have one navy centric one would love to have one Air Force centric. So. But that's a topic for another day. But the Junior ROTC promise is federally funded, so those things may go away if the school board doesn't make a pivot and rectified or correct the mistake they have made as far as policy.
So those are the things that I'm kind of referring to there in that particular statement that I made.
[01:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, before, you know, before we dwell into some other issues, I wanted you to maybe clarify because I've heard from some of the posts, like, some believe repealing RA 8040 could harm transgender students.
So how do you respond to that concern? Maybe, you know, a lot of this media misinform the public.
So what?
[01:04:51] Speaker A: So, so I would tell you so. So basic, basic understanding of 8040 is, like I mentioned before, is a special provision to provide some special accommodations for children with gender dysphoria.
However, it has harm girls. We have cases in which that policy has been used to. For sexual assaults of girls. That is known already 2021.
But, however, as I talk to other parents, it has hurt other children.
Yes, especially girls. And, and also not just physically, but also emotionally. But you can say financially because there are boys, male at birth, boys that had.
Has identified as girl and are competing in girl sports and put at risk the future, future potential for, for biological girls to have scholarships because they go in and overshadow their performance of girls. I mean, these are kids that they're not doing anything to change their chemistry, body chemistry, or biological prowess.
However, they overcome the girls in sports. So it's about justice and fairness.
You know, they disguise it as equity, but really it's not fair or just.
[01:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I will freak out. Like, you know, even in the gym facing, I think even, even, even adults, not just girls, but ladies. Like, I will freak out.
[01:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, Mike.
And, and, and that's the problem. They say that it's going to hurt kids that are transgender, but it's hurting other kids.
And, and, and they're suffering.
It's as valuable or as important or of concern. And it's more kids that is hurting than it's. That is not hurting. Because if you just eliminate altogether 80, 40, you will have, and you make sure with good education and protections that no kids is harmed. I mean, it's harming kids right now. But if you restore that, then you make special accommodations for those children. If they go through the 504 program or IAP or similar ways, you can affect those kids. But there are other kids that are not gender don't have gender dysphoria or anything. And they're using the policy to harm.
And that is the crux of the matter. The not seeing it for what it is.
It's unacceptable.
And I could tell you that going through middle school and high school with my children, I never saw any.
And this is even. I think, yeah, even before 8040 was enacted, children that were transgender identify on a different sex or anything. They were very well taken care of, at least in John Shaft High School and.
And Mercer.
My kids have very good friends with children that were identified as transgender.
There's no problem. And still to this day, they are friends and they have friends. I have grown their friend circle with kids are transgender and there is no problem. They're safe.
There's no attacks that I know of and, and I have asked.
There's no attacks against transgender in Loudoun county or anything like that. So it's a policy that opened the door for abuses versus rescuing anyone.
As far as I know.
If there has been abuse or anything or violation of civil liberties, there are recourses to mitigate that.
But. But they're. They're not using it. They just went in an eject reaction to anticipating something that. That. That was not there. In other words, I put it in simple terms. It was a solution in search of a problem.
There was no problem, and they created a solution. And now they are going and citing statistics and reports that are no relevance in Loudoun county, they say, well, in California, this. That's not allowed in county. Oh, in this part of the world, that's not allowed in county.
Again, it was a solution in search of a problem. And that is the problem that we have with the current leadership in the school board that hopefully will be removed and people with common sense like myself or Amy Riccardi and others, we can go there and restore hope and go back to fundamentals of teaching.
[01:09:55] Speaker B: That would be nice. That would be nice. So what do you think? So you've talked a lot. We've talked a lot about parental rights and know how it looks like in practice. So what do you think?
[01:10:07] Speaker A: You.
[01:10:07] Speaker B: When you get elected, how does it look like? What would you do differently to.
[01:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So.
So it's basically who am I?
Who I am for is what is different? I mean, the way I lead, the way I make decision, I'm a data driven decision maker. So you have to first look at the data and the information that you have available to determine what is the root cause of a problem, then find an adequate solution that's the way I operate in the military and life and business, you name it.
But you have to ask questions and you also have to go and reach out to even people that disagree with your policies to understand what the pros and cons are. None of that, from what I can see is a common practice in the current leadership in the school board.
And as a result you see all the policies that are causing harm to children.
What it looks like is just doing what's right at the right time and the process in which you do it, with discord, dialogue with the parents and experts, obviously and also you being an individual, critical thinker and asking the right questions. There has been many meetings that I've been the school board in which something like for instance, with money is raised and the majority of school boards, I mean there are one or two people that ask questions and they are quickly drowned by the majority and say don't.
These are not the drawers you're looking for.
No, you have to ask questions and address those concerns. I mean it is a.
It baffles me that, that, that they don't take seriously their role and the school board in business term. Think of it, the London county public system, pretty much every system in public schools in Virginia. Like a company, you have any company you name, it has a board of directors that are the owners of the company and then they hire CEO to run the company. You say Apple, you name it. The school board is like that. You have the school board who's the owners of everything.
And then they hire a CEO called the superintendent and that person runs the operation for that particular company or in this case the public school system.
It's my perception that is the tail leading the walk the dog or when the dog. So because the superintendent, it seems like it's going and push things through to the, to the school board and the school board rubber stamp whatever he is pushing. There's no accountability, there's no through exercise of the authority, the executive authority that the board should have by the constitution of Virginia.
Those are the things that will change immediately. I will ask the questions. I am in control because I'm the elected leader and I have to represent my constituency, the people in Dallas and make sure that there's transparency and we know what the school board or the superintendent is doing and how he's doing it or she, if he decides to quit, quit and go and someone else comes in, you know, we, we have to make sure that whoever the individual is in charge of this as the superintendent is accountable to the board and is presenting the data that is required for the board to make decisions. And right now for what I've seen that's not happening. So those are things that will change overnight the moment I get sworn in if I'm elected by the good people of those district and make sure that things are marching according to us. They should be hopefully that I hope.
[01:14:05] Speaker B: That I hope you guys can still reveal the you know RA8040.
[01:14:12] Speaker A: That is something that I if it's not done before we. If I'm elected before I take office that's one of the first thing we'll take into into the business agenda. At least I will propose it because the, the people in those districts, the people I talk to this the silent majority, they. They don't want it. And once they know what's happening because most people don't know what's happening and even you're asking more connected than. Than the average person, average citizen. So, so you can say that people don't know what's happening because people here in London county where we live there's a lot of dual income parents, you know households. I mean if you buy statistic if you go down the street you will see everything Houses, seven of them are living paycheck to paycheck. So. So. So they are very much invested in their everyday life so much that they don't have time to be going and leaving work and going to a school board and check with those things.
So it takes an extra effort to. To be involved in that at that level.
So they assume like I was for a long time oh there's good common sense people there. They should be doing the right thing. But come to when I start peeling the onion and see what the mess that we are right now and the reasons why we have the mess that we have right now.
It's very apparent that people with common sense have left the public square. And in the vacuum people go in with either endorsed by special interests or your name it's or ambitions of something greater than just serving the public.
And that's what we see right now. Those are the things that will change almost drastically if I'm elected and there's five seats in this coming election in November of 2025. So if we have new people with common sense approach it would be there's nine seats all together in the board.
We could have consensus with like minded individuals.
[01:16:24] Speaker B: That would be nice. We will be praying for that.
[01:16:27] Speaker C: And you know just aspect about putting a halt to indoctrination of the kids.
I have real problems with that, yeah, we want.
[01:16:40] Speaker A: We want education, not indoctrination. We want to teach them how to think, not what to think.
That is a very notable thing in my platform and something I'm very much looking forward to, to make sure it's the norm.
[01:17:02] Speaker B: Well, you are the chair of the Education Committee on Virginia's Latino Advisory Board, Correct. What are the key issues facing Latino families in Loudoun County?
[01:17:14] Speaker A: That's a very good question.
I was appointed by the current governor to be part of the Virginia Latino.
The government of Virginia has about over 300 different boarding commissions. Each one is a different focus. You have boards on agriculture, veteran affairs, engineering, women's issues, African American issues, Asian, Asian issues. So I'm part of the Latino Advisory Board, focuses on Latino and advices through an annual report to the governor, whoever the sitting governor is. The board has been in place since, I think, 2004. It was the governor at the time that was. Entered the existence of that board into law.
So the members of the board, each member is appointed for four years.
So I was appointed in 2023. So I will continue to serve my full tenure whoever the next governor is going to be.
But the goal of that is to the 21 members in the board, and it's divided in four committees. Housing, Health care, education and business. And I'm the chair of the education. So during the year, we do town halls and go to events in order to listen to what are the concerns from the education perspective, which is your question specifically.
I notice a lot of parents talking about some of the same issues that we talked about already.
The Latino community, culture speaking.
They have a strong sense of justice and fairness, and they don't believe that, you know, boys should be in the safe spaces of girls. I mean, I'm a father of two daughters. I, you know, the.
It hurts me to know that there are elements of policy and that will put my precious daughters in harm's way.
And, and that's. That's how I'm wired. That's who I am as a person.
[01:19:31] Speaker B: That's why there's a lot. A lot of mass exodus from public school system because of these policies.
[01:19:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. No, you're absolutely right. So. So the having safe environments that focus on education, not indoctrination.
[01:19:46] Speaker B: Right.
[01:19:47] Speaker A: For the Latino community. Since I've been in the board chair of the Education Committee, I hear it all across Virginia because, I mean, we do those town halls in different places. And the last one was here in Northern Virginia a few weeks ago. Before that was in Richmond. I think the Next one will be in Virginia beach. And I think the one after that I don't think has to be determined. But we go a couple times a year and we gather at town hall and do meetings that we try to get information so we can do an annual report to the governor and on the things that we see and things that, and recommendations that we may be providing for the good and welfare of the community. I'm representing, which is the Latino community. So yeah, that level of fairness is one that is not only for safety but also for academics. I mean, just like I told you about that young man that I met earlier today, he's from the Indian community here and in the Dulles district.
Latinos have the same, same issues. I mean they, they work hard and they should deserve the same level of, of success as any other child. Doesn't. Doesn't matter.
But sometimes they, they feel like they are left behind. Especially in the Sterling area, for instance. Yeah, you have a lot of kids that are first generation Americans and sometimes they feel this disadvantage because of the language barriers or the way they learn from the Latino perspective. And again, this is how I grew up. Whenever you're learning how to read, they may say, hey, can you give me that red ball or that blue cup or that yellow pencil? There's always an adjective associated with the object.
So we are very visual from the Latino perspective. That's how I grew up learning that first generation of Americans.
Maybe there might be ways that we can adopt changes in the educational system when there's a majority of a particular demographic. In, in.
I believe there was some statistics that I thought I saw that some place like Fairfax, it's a. And also Sterling, I believe too, it's a majority minority, meaning that the majority of the population, the student body are what people call minority kids. You know, Latinos specifically. So if they are from like a first generation Americans, they may have a different language barriers that they have to do. So in situationally speaking, you can probably have set apologies that are regional. And when I mean regional, let's say that's the area of Sterling in which the, the curriculum might be adopted for that particular section of the population. Yeah, so. So those are the things that I glean from, from the Latino conversations I had over the last or over the year.
[01:23:11] Speaker B: So they want the like for example, of course, the basic like the reading and writing and math.
[01:23:15] Speaker A: That's, that's, that's what they, that's what they want. I mean they, they. Yeah, of course, people, people from the Latino community that I've talked to, they don't care about the indoctrination on ideology of any kind. I mean, they, they come with the expectation I want to provide an education for my kids that I probably didn't have from whatever country I came from.
[01:23:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:23:38] Speaker A: So they want that education, that ability for that particular child to grow up to the fullest potential that that kid may have by the grace of God. So when they are faced with other types of things that are not conducive to that particular goal in mind, that they expect it is a problem for them. And they have shared that concern many, many times over the course of my tenure as the, the chair of the Education Committee.
[01:24:11] Speaker B: That's good. That's good to know.
I never heard some, you know, of course, I never get in, in conversation with, although I served when I was in a reading specialist. I served, you know, a lot of Latino communities.
But I'm so glad that they are aligned with, you know, with common sense.
[01:24:29] Speaker A: Yeah, you'll be surprised.
The, the great melting pot. I believe it's the military.
So you, doesn't matter where you come from, what your last name, social, economic background, it doesn't matter. You, you enter the service, you're wearing the, you know, from just like everybody else. And, and I believe that in the core, we are all just people.
That's why I always taught my daughters to. When they say who you are, you're an American first.
I never understood why you would identify in something other than American.
So that's why when we moved to Virginia and when they first came here, within a year, or actually maybe like two years in the school system here, they were asking questions such as, you know, what am I? And things like that. I'm like, you're an American.
But what, what kind of American? Like, well, you're my daughter, you know, you, you, you're.
I, I, I did not understand what they were coming from, where the question was coming from, but it was more coming from the school system. The indoctrination. They, they were playing identity politics, you know, and things like that. I did not understand it until probably 2020 or 2019, you know, during COVID that so many.
I thought it was an isolated incident, but then I realized that some of the things that were emanating from, from the news and parents and critical race theory and everything.
[01:26:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:26:06] Speaker A: And then I like, oh, now I get it. That's why the change on, on the questions on their identity came from because it was being asked and pushed in the school system.
So that's when I During COVID or shortly after that, that's when I realized, okay, there, there's. There are problems here. And from Latino community, from no matter what community, we are a people. We. We deserve the same level of respectability and, and opportunities like everybody else. And I, I think it's, we make too much emphasis on, on, on. On those differences instead of focusing on what's common for everybody, which.
[01:26:46] Speaker B: Right.
[01:26:47] Speaker A: You know, very good. What the Declaration of Dependence says, you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's. That's the bottom line.
[01:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that's great. Now, what's something. What's other things that voters might not know about you that we haven't talked about, but. But should. So, you know, kind of like your final words to the voters.
What do they need to know about you that we haven't talked in the podcast?
[01:27:11] Speaker A: Okay.
I would say the, the love of people that I have. I, I love talking to people. I'm a people person. I, I believe that every person has a story and a song that they, they just want to tell.
And I want to hear those. I want to make sure that I capture your essence. If elected by this office, I will provide a sense of obviously duty and solemn oath to the people that all the people, whether they vote for me or not, but also carry with me when I'm there making decisions a little bit about the stories I hear and everything. Because I want to be able to fully represent everybody in the Dallas district and be able to get up in the morning optimistic that what I'm going to do. Good for the sake of others.
That's always in my mind, even when I go to the school boards meetings, which I'm not obviously elected official, but when I go there, it's like, why? What I can go. So I'm very optimistic.
I looked. People say there are people that may see a glass half empty. I always see it half full. I look at what is around the riverbend, you know, I know there's going to be something good there.
I'm optimistic, I'm curious, and I think hopefully people can take that with them and say, you know, this is a person I think I can trust and has my back and I will.
You can take that to the bank. I think that's the best thing I can say as we're closing this.
Yeah.
[01:29:08] Speaker B: So how can people get involved with your campaign?
[01:29:12] Speaker A: I will invite everybody to go to munoz4va.com no Munoz M u n o z at Zebra for f o R V A. And if you don't know how to spell VA then you need to go back to school. But that's my website. I think that's one of the first and ways that you can see what I believe in a little bit more about my story.
And we have links in the website that point to our social media platforms. I'm trying to be transparent and provide real updates as I know them.
So one of the best things that you know exactly what I'm up to and how I reacting to things is by going to those social media platforms and either subscribing or liking so you can know next to real time what's happening with me, what my reactions are, what I'm thinking, and I provide a lot of updates.
Right now I'm very concerned about the lack of understanding on what Sheriff Chapman's SRO program is because right now we have high schools and middle schools that have SROs, you know, you know, our security forces or people from the sheriff's department and they have a great program to include there. And I can, you know, you can search online what the their program is, which is mentors from the law enforcement teaching, you know, drug prevention and things like that.
[01:30:54] Speaker B: Oh, that's nice.
[01:30:55] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they have a great comprehensive plan and we have a way that we can do it in a financially affordability way, but the school board is not taking that into consideration. So I, I'm very troubled by that because the high schools and middle schools are protected, but elementary schools are not dying from the school board. So I find that very curious and I want to pull that thread and learn more about it and, and know what are the arguments against protecting our children. I. I don't understand it. It doesn't pass the common sense test.
So those are the things that I want to talk and explore more.
And you'll see it if you go to my website and then you subscribe to my social media platforms. You will get all updates as I find it. I will make comment on it and you will have it real time.
[01:31:49] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:31:50] Speaker B: That's good. Well, thank you so much. This is awesome.
[01:31:54] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:31:57] Speaker B: I will definitely create a blog post and that we get attached to your website and we will continue to, you know, campaign for you especially.
[01:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah, no, no, we want change.
[01:32:13] Speaker B: We want change in the Loudoun County.
[01:32:15] Speaker A: Absolutely. Please pray for me and if you can support me in contribution. It takes money to, to be able to run a campaign and get my message across the district. So please subscribe, contribute and, and pray for me.
[01:32:30] Speaker B: We will. Thank you so much for your time.
Yeah.
Great. Great conversation. Thank you so much. It's. It's so great to know you.
[01:32:40] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:32:41] Speaker B: And we will continue to pray for your protection, for you and your family. That's a huge sacrifice. Just running, that's a huge sacrifice. So thank you so much for your services in the military and for your future service in the Loudon County School Board. And I hope.
[01:32:58] Speaker C: We hope, we pray.
[01:32:59] Speaker B: We will pray.
[01:33:01] Speaker A: It will be my pleasure.
[01:33:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you.
[01:33:03] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:33:04] Speaker B: And have a great night.
[01:33:06] Speaker C: Bye.
[01:33:06] Speaker A: Take care. God bless.
[01:33:08] Speaker B: God bless. Bye.
