Three members of the Cumberland County Board of Education who are seeking reelection are being challenged by five political newcomers.
The top three vote-getters will win seats on the board.
CityView asked the candidates about several issues facing the community. Here are their answers.
John Ornelas
Age: 40
Occupation: Department of Defense contractor
Elected offices held: None
Like many other school districts in the state, Cumberland County has a number of teacher vacancies. Recruiting is top of mind for school administrators, but it is still proving difficult to bring in new teachers. What more can the school system do to hire qualified teachers and retain them?
Reducing the over-capacity ratio in the classrooms should be our first consideration. Teacher burnout is becoming a top reason for teacher vacancies, along with the lack of support from their administrators and the superintendent's office. The lack of proper classroom supplies is causing many of our educators to fund their classrooms from their own personal funds. While we wait on our state legislators to increase teacher pay this would be a huge asset in retaining and recruiting.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools operated by computer connection only in the previous two years. Some education advocates worry about how virtual learning affected students emotionally, mentally and academically. Do you think classroom learning is back on track, as the pandemic has eased? What should be done to address the emotional and mental health needs of students who were unable to be in the same room with their classmates and teachers for most of two years?
As a parent and grandparent, I personally witnessed the emotional and mental toll that virtual learning had on our students. While in-person learning has resumed, we have become solely reliant on Chromebooks for our students. We need to adapt to at least a 50/50 style of teaching using both technology and hands-on learning. This will increase student and teacher communication as well as student-to-student communication and learning. We should also encourage school counselors to engage students more frequently to directly address the emotional and mental needs of our students post pandemic.
Some states have moved to put more restrictions on school curriculum, what teachers can say in the classroom and the types of books available in public schools and libraries. Do you think restrictions of this type are needed? If so, what specific guidelines on curriculum, teaching and books would you support? What do you think parents’ role should be in this debate?
We need to have security measures placed on students' Chromebooks to restrict access to inappropriate websites or social media via the technology they are provided for learning purposes. Teachers need to leave personal bias and political views out of their instruction to students. As for books in our school libraries, all books and literature should be age appropriate for the school they are in and should undergo scrutiny for pornographic or racially motivated material. Our schools are for learning a sound and proper education and ensuring our books are appropriate for all students should be a top priority. The county should provide a list of library additions to parents/guardians for their feedback. As a parent of children who are avid readers, I am not a fan of book banning unless the literature is inappropriate for their age.
Carol Stubbs
Age: 68
Occupation: Retired custodian
Elected offices held: I was president and vice president of the Cumberland County Association of Educators.
Like many other school districts in the state, Cumberland County has a number of teacher vacancies. Recruiting is top of mind for school administrators, but it is still proving difficult to bring in new teachers. What more can the school system do to hire qualified teachers and retain them?
Educators need a good salary for their profession. … a salary increase and good working conditions. Good customer service works all around the public education system. Staff will remain if it is a good atmosphere in the buildings.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools operated by computer connection only in the previous two years. Some education advocates worry about how virtual learning affected students emotionally, mentally and academically. Do you think classroom learning is back on track, as the pandemic has eased? What should be done to address the emotional and mental health needs of students who were unable to be in the same room with their classmates and teachers for most of two years?
I feel classroom learning is back in full swing. Some students need to know that learning is a process to educate themselves. We have to play catch up for the two years in the virtual mold. We need more psychiatrists in the schools. They can help students adjust to being around other students again….
Some states have moved to put more restrictions on school curriculum, what teachers can say in the classroom and the types of books available in public schools and libraries. Do you think restrictions of this type are needed? If so, what specific guidelines on curriculum, teaching and books would you support? What do you think parents’ role should be in this debate?
I think parents and educators should have a committee to oversee the books. I believe the school system knows what students read and don't read. Parents can opt their children out of a curriculum.
Greg West
Age: 56
Occupation: General contractor
Elected offices held: Cumberland County Board of Education - At Large
Like many other school districts in the state, Cumberland County has a number of teacher vacancies. Recruiting is top of mind for school administrators, but it is still proving difficult to bring in new teachers. What more can the school system do to hire qualified teachers and retain them?
It is indeed getting harder to attract and retain quality teachers for all our classrooms in
Cumberland County Schools. The district has 3,400 positions allotted for classroom teachers, social workers, psychologists, and counselors. We currently have 86 vacancies or a 2.5% vacancy rate. That is much improved from the beginning of the school year. The recruiting problem is not because of a lack of effort or creativity from our principals and Human Resources department. It really boils down to a lack of adequate funding. Their pay is too low. As retail and service sector wages have jumped and starting wages are now at $15 and $20 per hour, teacher pay has remained relatively flat compared to wage jumps in these other fields.
Teaching also has a high bar of entry, as it should. Generally, you need to have a college degree in a related field to teach. So, you must really plan and invest a lot of money if you want to be a teacher. Because of the comparably low pay, many bright young students are not choosing education as a major in college. So, the pipeline is not full, and supply is not meeting demand.
Our state and local leaders need to be convinced that this is an economic development and a moral problem that is only going to get worse over time. If we cannot properly educate our youth with a quality teacher in every classroom, then what does our future look like? We can and must do better by our teachers and the recruiting problem will take care of itself. Supply and demand in the quality teacher recruitment market will reach equilibrium only when wages rise, meaning teachers truly get paid what they are worth!
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools operated by computer connection only in the previous two years. Some education advocates worry about how virtual learning affected students emotionally, mentally and academically. Do you think classroom learning is back on track, as the pandemic has eased? What should be done to address the emotional and mental health needs of students who were unable to be in the same room with their classmates and teachers for most of two years?
Classroom learning was back on track shortly after our teachers got back in the buildings. And the test numbers reveal that there is no substitute for quality face-to-face instruction. With only a weekend to prepare, teachers in Cumberland County Schools pivoted at the onset of the pandemic and switched to virtual learning. They did a phenomenal job with tremendous help from an incredible school support staff. Everyone tried to adapt to virtual learning as the pandemic progressed.
The adults are professionals and switched even more smoothly back to in-person learning because that is what they knew. The adults recovered quickly. However, the children did not fare as well. For a variety of reasons, social and emotional development was delayed, and many formative development milestones were missed. All the children did not have an ideal virtual learning environment and we are just now realizing the consequences.
CCS is providing more access to behavioral and mental health services than ever before. Our Strategic Plan Action Item 3B states that we will develop a behavioral and mental health framework to address the individual needs of students and support the whole child. This initiative was in place before the pandemic but has rapidly progressed since the COVID onset. Children are resilient and most will recover quickly. For those that need additional support, Cumberland County Schools is giving the student and their family access to the resources and professionals through a program called School Behavioral Health (SBH). SBH allows select mental health providers to deliver comprehensive individual and family therapy in the school setting during the instructional day. We are removing barriers and bringing the services to those that need them. CCS supports the whole child more than ever before.
Some states have moved to put more restrictions on school curriculum, what teachers can say in the classroom and the types of books available in public schools and libraries. Do you think restrictions of this type are needed? If so, what specific guidelines on curriculum, teaching and books would you support? What do you think parents’ role should be in this debate?
Cumberland County Schools follows the North Carolina Standard Course of Study (NCSCOS). Nothing more, nothing less. According to the NC DPI website, the NCSCOS “defines the appropriate content standards for each grade level and each high school course to provide a uniform set of learning standards for every public school in NC.” Furthermore, “these standards define what students are expected to know and be able to do by the end of each school year or course.” So, we teach a state level curriculum and I do not feel any changes need to be made. It is a rigorous curriculum that, when taught with fidelity, will prepare students to be successful at life and/or further education. Our biggest problem is not the curriculum, but the lack of quality teachers in every classroom to deliver the state-adopted curriculum competently and completely.
Parents are our partners in education. Education starts in the home with the parents, and they should have a strong voice in any discussion about curriculum or materials. If a parent disagrees with the curriculum or a resource, then they should bring it to the attention of the classroom teacher or principal. We need our parents to be more engaged than ever in the education of their children. The old proverb is correct, it does take a village to raise a child, and we all need to do our best for each and every one of them. This is the only childhood they will have, and we have one chance to do right by them and help them all reach their God-given potential!
Jacquelyn Brown
Age: 64
Occupation: Retired teacher's assistant for Cumberland County Schools
Elected offices held: None
Like many other school districts in the state, Cumberland County has a number of teacher vacancies. Recruiting is top of mind for school administrators, but it is still proving difficult to bring in new teachers. What more can the school system do to hire qualified teachers and retain them?
On a more broad scale, I feel that we must provide a more adequate financial compensation package for teachers in North Carolina. We are not going to get the best teachers in Cumberland County if North Carolina is frequently being listed as one of the states with the lowest financial compensation for teachers. I feel that if North Carolina teachers were better compensated for the challenges they are asked to take on on a daily basis, then there would be no problem in attracting the best teachers in the country to Cumberland County. Furthermore, if our teachers were adequately compensated, we wouldn't have as many problems with teacher retention as we do currently.
On a more personal level, we have to treat our teachers and staff with respect. No one wants to work in a place where they feel overworked and unappreciated. If we are to attract and retain teachers in Cumberland County, we first need to start with the simple solution of respecting and supporting the teachers that we have now.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools operated by computer connection only in the previous two years. Some education advocates worry about how virtual learning affected students emotionally, mentally and academically. Do you think classroom learning is back on track, as the pandemic has eased? What should be done to address the emotional and mental health needs of students who were unable to be in the same room with their classmates and teachers for most of two years?
Distance learning took away the "human" component of direct learning. I do not think the classroom is back on track now that the pandemic has eased. We are going to need more counselors in the schools. The students who are having trouble getting back on track after the pandemic will need to be able to discuss the issues they are having emotionally as well as academically with someone. I also think we should set up a program that would incentivize students from our local universities to come out to our public schools and be available to work with our students directly, giving them the extra help they need to catch up on their core subjects. Not only would our students benefit intellectually from the extra help, these college students would also give them a peer closer to their age that can mentor them and help them through the mental and emotional rigors that may have been brought on by the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some states have moved to put more restrictions on school curriculum, what teachers can say in the classroom and the types of books available in public schools and libraries. Do you think restrictions of this type are needed? If so, what specific guidelines on curriculum, teaching and books would you support? What do you think parents’ role should be in this debate?
I do believe there should be some restrictions on what teachers can say in the classroom and the types of materials that are made available to students in the public schools and libraries. School is a place to prepare the young minds for a successful and prosperous life in the workplace and society. It is not a place to be indoctrinated towards a particular lifestyle, religious view, or political spectrum. Subjects in these arenas should be handled at home or outside of the public school setting. I also think that parents should play a major role in this debate. Parents have the right to know what is being taught at the school their child attends, and having a say about it.
Julissa Jumper
Age: 52
Occupation: Real estate broker and investor, homemaker
Elected offices held: None
Like many other school districts in the state, Cumberland County has a number of teacher vacancies. Recruiting is top of mind for school administrators, but it is still proving difficult to bring in new teachers. What more can the school system do to hire qualified teachers and retain them?
It is true that the administration is having great difficulty recruiting quality teachers for Cumberland County schools. This is not a new problem, unfortunately. Now, a proposed teacher pay schedule, which unfairly penalizes experienced and better-qualified teachers, would make the job much harder. Yet, the larger issue is not just recruiting teachers, but retaining the ones we already have. Every experienced, well-qualified teacher we lose takes years of training, work experience, and education to recover. What a shame. We really should re-focus on retaining our best.
Additionally, teachers are also quitting because of unchecked discipline issues in our schools. Unruly students, fights, disrespect, foul language, and parental apathy have led many to feel unsafe and undervalued. Substitute teachers are not willing to sign on, either, and an already under-staffed teacher cadre must assume additional duties, lose valuable prep time, and take work home just to keep up.
Teachers’ career fulfillment does not just rest on pay and discipline issues. Restoring the ability of teachers to use their judgment, experience, and creativity to prepare dynamic lesson plans instead of scripted lessons gives them the ability to tailor teaching to their students. Focusing on teacher front-line issues instead of administrator demands also allows teachers the prep time they need to make a difference in students’ lives. And, simply respecting them by paying fairly for the additional duties and demands staff places on them would also help our teachers have a better sense of career fulfillment.
Our school board and administration have not done much to correct this situation. They have passed the blame to others: the county commissioners, who don’t budget enough; the state, which has shortsighted pay policies; or even to teachers themselves, who cannot keep up with the increasing demands of an administrative staff that constantly places more demands on each teacher. Simply calling our teachers “Premier Professionals” but not demonstrating that through pay and actions is not going to suffice. Prioritizing teacher pay and issues over other demands in the budget is a choice we must make.
My platform seeks to recapture our focus on correcting low levels of student proficiency in reading, writing and math. These are the real measure of how well our schools perform, and if proposed state teacher certification requirements are implemented, these will be the “objective” areas used to rate teachers. We also must address teacher pay and support. The county, the board and the administration should prioritize supplemental pay for teachers, hiring others to perform additional duties, and restore school credibility by shouldering the burden for issues such as consistent discipline standards and dress code standards, removing those responsibilities from teachers. I will also seek to increase parental involvement and transparency through open and safe discussion of the issues. You should know that I will vote to prioritize the budget to address these issues above all others.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools operated by computer connection only in the previous two years. Some education advocates worry about how virtual learning affected students emotionally, mentally and academically. Do you think classroom learning is back on track, as the pandemic has eased? What should be done to address the emotional and mental health needs of students who were unable to be in the same room with their classmates and teachers for most of two years?
This is the single most important issue facing our schools right now. There is no doubt that school closures and virtual learning had a damaging impact on all our students. According to a comprehensive report by the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, using data from over 2.1 million students in over 10,000 schools, researchers found that because of the widening of the already existing achievement gap caused by school closures, students in high poverty schools (majority black and brown students) are expected to experience a 5% decline in average earnings over their lifetime in their careers. In essence, we have literally guaranteed these high-poverty school students an adult life with a lower earning potential.
This wound is self-inflicted. Our state government overreacted and used emergency powers to cause a massive amount of harm and learning loss. The county school board and administration did not push back against the fearmongering and they ceded their decision-making authority and responsibility to an un-elected county health director. They did not address or respect the parents in the community that raised these issues, they sealed themselves off from the public behind masks and glass for months, even well after it was obvious that fears were overwrought, and they aggressively sought out mask and vaccine mandates for a youth and student population that is little impacted by COVID, even over the objection of parents who alone should determine what medical interventions their children require.
Think of the learning damage done to children in K-3rd, who went over a year without quality learning, and we now expect them to be highly proficient as measured by an end of 3rd grade test. Will we now just pass them on to the next grade levels as if they can perform at this level? Or consider the junior and senior students now on their way to a career or college that lost a year or more of learning, and now are expected to perform as if they had been fully trained. And, what of students that had little supervision or personal interaction while stuck behind computer screens for hours each day and that we now expect to behave in classrooms as if they had not been largely ignored for a year or more.
Thankfully, our schools still have millions of dollars of COVID federal funds that we need to invest in our children. High dosage tutoring is needed to get students back on track, even hiring one-on-one tutors, if necessary. A great way to help students who suffered emotional or self-esteem issues because of school closures is to increase their competence in their academic performance, improve their educational outcomes, and increase their confidence in their academic success. The best use of those funds is to prioritize correcting for learning loss over any infrastructure or other issue, especially the students most damaged by the closures in our high-poverty schools.
Some states have moved to put more restrictions on school curriculum, what teachers can say in the classroom and the types of books available in public schools and libraries. Do you think restrictions of this type are needed? If so, what specific guidelines on curriculum, teaching and books would you support? What do you think parents’ role should be in this debate?
My positions are very clear. I am absolutely against material with graphic depictions of sexual activities being in our schools, for any age, and for any sexual orientation.
The media and certain interest groups try to misrepresent this issue as unwarranted censorship and “book banning.” However, most parents are merely asking that we restrict overly sexualized material. Some of the material describes intimate sexual activities in graphic detail, with instructions on how to perform certain acts, including instructions for same sex activities and describing acts between adults and children. Frankly, much of this is grooming our children and encouraging them to engage in sexual activity at the earliest ages. This is not Health Education, and I vehemently oppose that form of instruction.
Additionally, current board members have either very publicly denied that CRT-related instruction is in our schools or have supported it because they believe it only teaches about the evils of slavery, racism, and that ugly history of our nation. Yet, CRT-related instruction goes far further than history and it is disingenuous to claim that CRT-related material is not used as a method of instruction in our schools.
The NC Department of Public Instruction has developed a pedagogy of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) that focuses on the social and emotional reasons some students struggle with learning achievement. But, there are huge problems with SEL. First, not all students are struggling emotionally, so why introduce such inappropriately mature concepts? Secondly, it removes the focus from learning the basics and focuses instead on feelings, relating them to the power dynamics of oppressed/oppressor. It also puts teachers directly into the role of emotional analyst, giving them surveys and other tools to describe vast insecurities children experience, relating it to culture, race, and gender theories.
This doctrine is written into our educational materials. I oppose it for three reasons: it removes the intense focus we need on teaching a high level of proficiency in the core subjects of reading, writing and math, instead focusing on self-identity and social awareness; it places teachers into a role they are not trained or certified to perform as emotional analysts and counselors; and it removes the parental role of training a child’s values and imposes a communal, preset core of values into students instead. As a board member, I will insist our curriculum re-focus on core subjects, I will oppose the added burden placed on un-qualified teachers, and I will demand full parental access to books, libraries, computer programs, websites, surveys and other teaching materials, giving parents the right to opt out of any instruction for their children that they oppose.
Charles McKellar
Age:
Occupation:
Elected offices held: Cumberland County school board
McKellar did not respond to the questionnaire.
Judy Musgrave
Age:
Occupation:
Elected offices held: Cumberland County school board
Musgrave did not respond to the questionnaire.
Nyrell Melvin
Age:
Occupation:
Elected offices held:
Melvin did not respond to the questionnaire.
