Dona Murphey

Dona Kim Murphey, a physician, scientist, community advocate, and mother, is running for Pearland ISD Board of Trustees, Position 5. She is running for the board to set the district on a path of healthy students, healthy schools, and healthy communities. Dona brings her professional and life experiences to bear on data-driven educational policy, reasoning through systems failures, and inclusion of vulnerable student communities. The current board has not been responsive to the needs of our diverse students and fails to assess and pivot when their responses have been insufficient or inappropriate. We have a teen suicide rate that is 150% national average. Our district is unsafe for students with economic need (28%), disabilities (8%), identifying as black (15%), immigrant (46%), or LGBT (4.5%) in terms of equitable access to learning opportunities, severe and disproportionate punishment, lack of devoted outreach in a dangerously anti-immigrant climate, and active religiously motivated intolerance. Parents, students, and teachers understand that safety is a precondition to learning and overwhelmingly support a whole school, whole community, whole child health approach.