My name is Dayln D. Myers, and before anything else, I want you to know this isn't a campaign speech. It's just the truth about who I am and why I'm asking for your trust.
I grew up right here in Caddo Parish. Lakeshore Elementary is where I learned to read. Newton Smith 6th Grade Center is where I learned to find my voice. And Booker T. Washington High School is where I became who I am today — I walked across that stage in May 2018, and I never really left. These aren't just schools to me. They're home.
Coming back to serve
In 2019, I came back to BTW — not as a student this time, but as the Attendance and Discipline Secretary, working alongside Dr. Crystal Tate-Barnes. For three years, I did whatever the building needed. I coordinated our COVID response. I stepped in during crises. I sponsored our Student Government Association. I ran our social media so families could see what our kids were really doing. In March 2020, I was named Exceptional Person of the Month, and honestly, that meant more to me than almost anything — because it came from the people I worked beside every day.
I left that role in 2022, but I never left the work.
The day I picked up a bus route
When Caddo Parish hit a school bus driver shortage, I watched routes go uncovered and kids show up late, or not at all. I couldn't just watch. So I got my CDL Class B license, and I became the first Caddo Parish staff member to drive a bus route while still working my job on campus — a pilot program under Superintendent Dr. Lamar Goree. A few other staff members followed after me, and I'm proud of that. Not because I did something extraordinary, but because it proved something simple: when you love these kids, you find a way.
"I've been the one waiting at the front office when a parent couldn't be reached, and I've been the one behind the wheel making sure a kid gets home safe. I've seen this district from every seat."
Devin
I want to tell you about my brother. Devin Myers played basketball at Huntington High School, and he had a light about him that people still talk about. Losing him changed me. It's part of why I started Friends of Devin, a nonprofit where I now serve as President and Assistant Executive Director. We built it in his memory, and we run it in his spirit — showing up for young people the way he showed up for everyone he knew. I don't share this for sympathy. I share it because it's the truest explanation I have for why I care this much about what happens to our kids.
Where I am now
Today, I work as an HR Specialist at Brighter Future Counseling Services, and I still drive a bus route for SafeRiders Solutions, serving Third Future Schools' Linwood Charter School. I'm working on a business degree through University of Phoenix, and I'm pursuing a childcare director credential through the NAC program, because one day I want to open a Type III childcare center right here in Caddo Parish. I'm still building, still learning, still showing up.
Why I'm running
I'm not running for this seat because I have all the answers. I'm running because I've sat in almost every seat District 5 has to offer — the classroom, the front office, the driver's seat — and I know what our families are actually living through. I know what it feels like when a decision made in a boardroom shows up as a real consequence in a real kid's day. That's the perspective I want to bring to this board: not theory, but lived experience.
I believe District 5 deserves a board member who isn't learning the district from a briefing packet — someone who already knows the hallways, the bus loop, the front office phone number by heart. That's what I bring. Not because I'm better than anyone else running, but because I've been here the whole time, doing the work quietly, and I think it's time to bring that same commitment to the board table.
Time for a change. Time to show up. That's not just a slogan to me — it's what I've been doing since 2019, and it's what I'll keep doing for as long as District 5 will have me.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. It means more than you know.
