Neighbors,
I'm Tim Burke. I'm a computer network engineer, my family is part of Willis ISD, and I'm asking for your vote for the school board.
Our family is in these schools every day. My son just started as a Willis ISD student, my daughter will follow in a couple of years, and my wife teaches here. I'm not running because something is broken. Willis ISD has made real progress in the last few years, with more openness and steadier leadership, and I want to help keep that momentum. Last year I served on the district's Long Range Planning Committee, where I spent months with the enrollment projections and the facility assessments, and I came away impressed by how far ahead this district is already thinking. I'm running because the district is growing fast, and a lot of the families filling these schools are new here. They chose Willis because of what the folks before them built. I want to be a bridge between the two: someone who respects what this district has always been and can speak for the families who just joined it.
For work, I keep the network running for a large state university system. Before that I spent years in private-sector telecommunications and ran IT for a public safety agency. None of that makes me an expert on teaching, and I won't pretend otherwise. What it gives me is a habit of planning for growth before it becomes a crisis and asking hard questions about big purchases. I want to use that to keep the district's attention where it belongs: on whether students are learning, and on whether the teachers and staff doing the work feel supported enough to stay. I live with a teacher. I know how much the second one matters.
I don't own a business that does work with the district and I don't have a financial stake in any of its contracts. If you elect me, the only thing I'll owe anyone is a straight answer.
Thanks for reading. I hope to meet you soon!
— Tim
Where I Stand
Honor the tradition. Welcome the newcomers.
Willis ISD has a history worth protecting, and the families who've been here for generations built it. Look at the new rooftops and you'll see who's joining them. Both deserve a voice on the board, and I want to be someone both can call.
Copy what works.
When something breaks on a network, I don't guess. I look at the numbers and find where it's going wrong. Schools deserve the same discipline. Some Willis campuses are getting real results and some are struggling. The board should see the same few numbers for every school, every year, and when one campus has figured something out, the board should be asking why every campus isn't.
Put the money where students and staff feel it.
A growing district spends a lot on buildings, buses, and technology, and I've spent my career planning that kind of infrastructure. The district should publish a plan that shows where enrollment is headed, what we'll need to build, hire, and wire to keep up, and what it will cost, then update it every year in public. Then the board's job is to make sure the dollars show up in student outcomes and in the daily lives of the people who make a school run: teachers, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria and front-office staff, all of them.
Safety is a system. I've run one.
I was the IT director for a public safety agency. I wasn't the one responding to calls; I made sure the systems responders depended on worked when they keyed the radio. School safety has the same quiet failure points: cameras, door controls, radios, the network behind them. "Tested" shouldn't mean a vendor said so. It should mean someone tried every door and keyed a radio from the far end of every building, on a schedule, with the results in front of the board.
No financial stake in district business.
I don't have a financial interest in any district contract, and I won't take one on while I serve. Where a vote is specific to my own family, I'll step aside from it. Votes happen in public, and I'll explain mine.
Tell families early, plainly, and often.
Parents shouldn't have to dig through agendas to learn what's happening at their school or why the board voted the way it did. Teachers and staff should hear about decisions that affect them before they read about them somewhere else. Communication is a job the district has to do well, not a courtesy.
Questions I get asked
Why are you running? Is something wrong with the district?
No. Willis ISD has a lot going right. I'm running because the district is growing fast, and I think the board benefits from someone who can connect the newer families to the community that was here first, who has spent a career planning for growth in large organizations, and who cares about what that growth means for students and for the teachers we need to keep. It's an addition, not a rebuke. The folks who've been here for generations deserve a board that protects what they built, and the folks who just got here deserve a board that knows their name.
Your wife teaches in the district. Isn't that a conflict of interest?
No, and I'm glad people ask, because I'd rather say it plainly than have anyone wonder. My wife was a Willis ISD teacher long before I decided to run, and she'll keep being one whether I win or lose. If I'm elected, I won't vote on anything specific to her: her position, her evaluation, her campus assignment. I'll abstain and say so on the record. On district-wide decisions like the salary schedule, I'll vote like any other trustee, and I'll say out loud that my household is affected.
A conflict of interest is when someone on the board profits from district business. A teacher's paycheck isn't that. I don't own a company that sells to the district, and I don't have a financial interest in any contract the board votes on. If anything, living with a teacher means I hear what's working in our classrooms and what isn't long before it reaches a board meeting.
I have also written down every vote I would step away from, and why, on my conflicts and recusals page.
Have you served on a board before?
Yes. I'm the treasurer of my HOA, which means I'm the one who has to explain the budget to my neighbors and answer for where their money went. I was also recently appointed to the board of the City of Conroe's Industrial Development Corporation. Neither is a school board, but both are the same kind of work: public money, public meetings, and people who deserve a plain explanation of what you decided and why.
What does a trustee actually do?
Trustees hire and evaluate the superintendent, approve the budget and tax rate, set district policy, and vote on major contracts and bond projects. They don't run schools day to day. That's the job I'm asking for.
How to Vote
- October 5Last day to register
- October 19–30Early voting
- November 3Election Day
Keep scrolling to the bottom of your ballot. This is a midterm year, so the ballot is long. Willis ISD trustee races sit near the end, after the state and county offices. In the Position 5 race, my name is listed first.
Polling places and hours: Montgomery County Elections. Check your registration at votetexas.gov.
Get Involved
Put up a sign
A sign in your yard tells your friends and neighbors that someone they know took a look at this race. Tell me where you live and I'll bring one by.
Chip in
I'm not a fundraiser. What I am is a first-time candidate who needs signs in yards and mailers in mailboxes. Every dollar you give buys exactly that, and every dollar shows up on a public report. Texas law doesn't allow contributions from corporations or labor unions.
DonateTalk to me
I don't have all the answers, and I'd be suspicious of anyone running for this seat who says they do. If something's on your mind about our schools, send it here. I read every one, and if you'd rather talk it through in person, I'll buy the coffee.
Rather skip the form? Call or text 936-203-0900, or email tim@timforwillis.org.