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CMS District 5 Board of Education Candidates Share Their Views

Lisa Worf
Dilworth Elementary School in District 5

The election for Charlotte Mecklenburg's school board will take place on Nov. 7.  There are six seats up for grabs in the district with incumbents seeking re-election in three of them. WFAE sent a list of questions to all of the school board candidates about their backgrounds and thoughts on a few issues the district is facing, including student assignment and school bonds. 

Here are their responses. Some were edited for brevity:

DISTRICT 5

Margaret Marshall

Occupation:  CPA

Credit submitted
Margaret Marshall

  

Have you ever held or run for an elected office?

No

 

What will be a top priority for you if elected?

I want to work with parents in my area to shore up support for public schools. The district I aspire to represent has students performing at high academic levels and students struggling due to the effects of poverty or language difficulties. We must meet every student where they are and provide an excellent education for them.  

 

What is your position on the bond issue and why?

I am in support of the bond package. We have a $2 Billion identified need and I wish we could build all of that immediately, but this bond amount prevents a tax increase. We are behind in updating our facilities and in building new ones to accommodate growth. These needs are not going away and new ones are presenting themselves. We must begin the process now.

 

What is your position on the student assignment plan?

The pairing of the elementary schools, Cotswold/Billingsville and Dilworth/Sedgefield, solved the problem of crowded schools next to schools with space. I am not advocating pairing as a one size fits all solution. In the case of the last assignment vote, there wasn’t enough time to effectively develop and communicate those changes. The Board of Education did not make changes to schools in the southern part of District 5 because the new bond includes a new high school which will necessitate a new high school attendance zone. The board did not want to move students twice and I agree with that decision.  

What do you think needs to happen to make CMS schools more racially and economically diverse and improve low-performing schools?

I think the new lottery in place in the magnet program does begin to address that issue. More schools will have a mix of socio-economic students than we currently have and I think that is a good thing.  However, we will not be able to eliminate high poverty schools in this community by simply moving students around. We must make an effort to improve the economic conditions so that families are more secure in housing and in their ability to provide for their families. The responsibility does not lie solely on CMS. The more we improve economic conditions for everyone, the more our schools will improve.

 

Jim Peterson

Occupation: Operational strategist and risk management specialist

 

Credit submitted
Jim Peterson

  

Have you ever held or run for an elected office?

Yes, I ran for City Council, District 6, in 2013

 

What will be a top priority for you if elected?

My biggest priorities center on performance and smaller classroom sizes. We need to reduce the number of students per teacher in classrooms. Elementary school teachers cannot be expected to effectively teach a class with 30 plus students in it.  When you get to middle and high school, those numbers can jump to more than 40 students per classroom. At that point teachers often are just trying to manage the room instead of being able to effectively teach in it. 

 

What is your position on the bond issue and why?

I support the school bond. It is critical to our CMS system. We need to fix our infrastructure and expand to simply keep up with the overcapacity of our current schools. The current CMS annual budget does not have the funds in it to address the current needs or the future growth.

 

What is your position on the student assignment plan? 

This plan was pushed together in a manner and with decisions I would not have made. I am a believer in the value of neighborhood schools instead of trying to ship students around to somehow level the performance ratings of schools. Give students the opportunity to find excellence across the street instead of having to ride a bus across the city. We need to make every one of our schools a center of excellence that meets and exceeds the needs of its students. 

 

What do you think needs to happen to make CMS schools more racially and economically diverse and improve low-performing schools?

I believe in early beginnings with a focus on foundational reading and math skills.  To accomplish that we need to reduce classroom sizes and get teacher assistants back in the classrooms. 

Jeremy Stephenson

Occupation: Corporate attorney; I also do pro bono work for the Council for Children’s Rights

 

Credit submitted
Jeremy Stephenson

  

Have you ever held or run for an elected office?

Yes, at-large CMS school board candidate in 2015

 

What will be a top priority for you if elected?

Our most pressing issue is those schools with less than 20% of students reading proficiently, which correlates to race and poverty. We must address that singular issue at every turn. My first priority is empowering and directing Superintendent Clayton Wilcox to tackle this issue. In that regard, I will work with Best-NC and other groups to identify schools that are better educating children of color and those in poverty. I will also use my bully pulpit to demand that more people and businesses help our schools. 

 

What is your position on the bond issue and why?

I strongly support the bond plan. Our capital needs are vast and legitimate.  Anyone against the bond needs to visit Collinswood or Bruns or Lansdowne.  I fear the “not enough for us” argument because the bond list must not become a political football. The current board opened that Pandora’s Box this spring when they caved to Council Commissioner Velma Leake regarding West Charlotte (receiving bond funds).  

 

What is your position on the student assignment plan?

I believe our most pressing issue is those schools reading below 20% and it cannot be solved through student assignment. Many parents favor neighborhood schools.  I believe we will need to make some changes based on capacity problems as time goes on, and as new schools are built. We also have some borders that currently make no sense; if you live close enough to hear the school band during Friday night football, you must be allowed to attend that school. 

 

What do you think needs to happen to make CMS schools more racially and economically diverse and improve low-performing schools?

I do not believe we can make schools diverse if neighborhoods are not. The student assignment plan touched 7,000 students out of 147,000, and none of the areas with high concentrations of poverty. Nonetheless, we have too many Title One schools in non-Title One neighborhoods and we must hold up as examples parents who choose to opt-in rather than opt-out, as heroes to recognize. 

Gwendolyn is an award-winning journalist who has covered a broad range of stories on the local and national levels. Her experience includes producing on-air reports for National Public Radio and she worked full-time as a producer for NPR’s All Things Considered news program for five years. She worked for several years as an on-air contract reporter for CNN in Atlanta and worked in print as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, The Washington Post and covered Congress and various federal agencies for the Daily Environment Report and Real Estate Finance Today. Glenn has won awards for her reports from the Maryland-DC-Delaware Press Association, SNA and the first-place radio award from the National Association of Black Journalists.