Aaron has lived in Arlington for nearly 30 years where he and his wife, Debra, have raised two wonderful children who graduated from Lamar High School.
He has proudly been serving the students and the community of Arlington as a Trustee since 2009 bringing his vast leadership, finance, policy making and communication experience from his career and community roles. He has led the Board as Chair and member of every Board committee and every officer position. He is currently the immediate past President of the Board of Trustees.
As he says, the better the school district, the better the economic prosperity of the community. He has put that belief into action. During his tenure on the Board of Trustees, he has focused on collaborations, strategic partnerships, and reforms of the district, striving to make it the best district and safest environment for students, rewarding for teachers, and aligning the performance of the district with the expectations of the community so everyone can thrive.
In his time, the Board has won the State of Texas Board of the Year in 2014 and 2015, and has developed bold strategic plans resulting in numerous district enhancements including many student programming changes, bond packages, and educator support initiatives all leading to greater student achievement. He has been a champion for diversity and ensuring access to opportunity for all. He has focused on strategic alliances, collaborations, partnerships, fiscal stewardship, economic community prosperity and advocacy all in the name of making the Arlington ISD the best place for students to learn, be inspired, and ultimately succeed in the career and/or college of their choice while growing to be great contributing citizens in our community.
During this time of COVID, experience and leadership is needed which is one of the reasons why Dr. Reich has chosen to continue serving upon re-election. With his help, things like eliminating the STAAR test during the first COVID spring semester, eliminating the accountability system the following COVID spring semester, and numerous other state challenges have been avoided. During the pandemic, over 40,000 devices and hotspots were distributed, hundreds of thousands of meals distributed, and millions of dollars have been allocated for student and employee safety, testing, virtual learning, safe in-person learning and more.
In addition to being so active as a Trustee, he has also been active in the community serving in the PTA, Dads’ Clubs, Boy Scouts, founded a non-profit dedicated to parental and fatherhood involvement programs, serves on the Theatre Arlington Board as the immediate past President, is a Director on the Arlington Children’s Toys Board (Margarita Society), a founder and Director of the International Corridor Vision and has served on the Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce Board.
Here's a link to an article from Raise Your Hand Texas covering one of AISD's very successful Back to School Bash's. As you'll read words from Dr. Reich in the article - it's all about community and creating connections so students win!