About Lily

• Lily immigrated to the U.S. at the age of nine, speaking no English.  She was an ESL (English as a Second Language) student and understands the challenges of English language learners.  
• Her parents also spoke no English and worked two to three jobs at any given time, so she also understands how a student can get lost without proper support from their family and/or the school system.  
• Her family was also low-income.  This is why Lily is passionate about helping this population in the District. 
• Lily graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a B.A. in International Affairs, and an MBA from the Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management (now a part of Arizona State University). 
• Lily was a pioneer in the Voice over IP (VoIP) space in the early 2000s, working for MCI in Atlanta, US West in Denver and various telecom organizations in Silicon Valley.  
• She was a Vice President and Executive Director of the International Packet Communications Consortium before leaving the job market to follow her husband back to his home town in Iowa to raise a family. 
• Lily has managed large budgets in the tens of millions while an executive in the telecom industry.
• Lily started her own business and was a founding board member of the LaunchPad Children's Museum. 
• Lily has three children -- one in middle school and two in high school, in San Diego Unified since 2011. 
• Lily has traveled extensively for work and pleasure. She and her family spent 10 months circling the globe in 2018-19.  
• She misses traveling and hopes to get back to it soon! 
• Lily is a breast cancer survivor and has been cancer free for eight years. 
• Lily speaks Mandarin Chinese and Korean.

As a mother of three current students in the district, I have been actively involved in helping students and improving the schools for more than a decade. 

I will bring leadership to the many issues and challenges facing our schools. 

• On the District Advisory Council, I worked with representatives from all SDUSD schools to propose a more equitable distribution of funds for low-income students. 
• As President of Barnard Elementary PTA, I increased participation and fundraising 200%. 
• As the Mission Bay Cluster Committee Chair, I collaborated with stakeholders to increase enrolment in all six schools. 
• As a classroom volunteer, I supported our teachers and students to increase learning opportunities. 
• As a member of School Site Councils and Site Governance teams (at all my kids' schools), I helped administrators allocate funding focused on our students’ needs.  
• As a member of the inaugural Local Control Accountability Plan committee member, I collaborated with other parents and district staff to shape the district's funding plan.
• As a member of the district calendar committee, I developed, distributed, and collected survey to establish the school master calendar.
• As the treasurer for the Friends of Pacific Beach Secondary Schools (FOPBSS), I worked with the executive committee to establish the budget and determine spending for Pacific Beach Middle School and Mission Bay High School.

As your board member: 

• I will bring the voice of the students, parents, teachers, and staff to the district to do what is best for our students.
• I will bring my experience as an immigrant, English Learner, and low-income student to help all students. 
• I will use my experience managing multi-million dollar budgets to increase classroom funding. 
• I will challenge the status quo to do what is best for our students. 
• I will be accessible to everyone by keeping office hours.