CMS school board candidates: District 2

There are three candidates running in District 2. Thelma Byers-Bailey is the incumbent.

Thelma Byers-Bailey (Democrat): As the incumbent in this race, Byers-Bailey is the vice chair and mostly votes with the majority. She’s the president of the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Association, a group she credits for getting her to run for school board. Byers-Bailey advocates strongly for districts' school funding. She was a primary advocate for getting the West Charlotte High School on the list for a multi-million-dollar renovation. West Charlotte, one of the oldest schools in CMS history, helped integrate the district. 

WATCH BYERS-BAILEY'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Juanrique Hall (Democrat): Hall is a newcomer to the world of school board politics but said he represents the children of District 2. Hall currently has a child in CMS schools and is a graduate of the school district. He works with the Alternatives to Violence Program. Hall, who was formerly incarcerated, said it allowed him to have life experiences that other candidates can't relate to. He challenges people to believe in the criminal justice system's reform efforts and is using his past experiences to tackle safety issues within CMS. His platform includes additional behavior specialists in schools, harsher punishments for gun violence and more trade programs. Here's what Hall said when he answered WCNC Charlotte's questionnaire.

WATCH HALL'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Monty Witherspoon (Democrat): Witherspoon is a pastor and a member of the Charlotte Black Political Caucus. The BPC is a powerful lobbying and voter engagement organization in Charlotte and the Mecklenburg County area that makes Witherspoon's candidacy competitive.  His platform includes increasing student achievement, safety and teacher retention. Witherspoon hopes to increase the teacher residency program at CMS, specifically increasing the pipeline of teachers of color and science and math teachers.

WATCH WITHERSPOON'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

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WCNC Charlotte Education Reporter Shamarria Morrison interviewed each candidate running for the school board about their positions on a number of critical topics facing education. Each candidate was given up to 16 minutes to respond to questions regarding the following topics: School safety, the CMS superintendent search, teacher and staff retention and CMS achievement scores.

WCNC Charlotte asked the following questions of each candidate:

School Safety

• In 2021, CMS had a record number of guns found in the first half of the school year. In response, the board directed the superintendent to make changes. The most front-facing included almost 10 million in weapons detectors, and more than $400,000 on clear backpacks. As of Sept 26, CMS reported no guns found on campuses this year. What other moves does CMS need to make to continue to make school safer? NOTE: After we concluded all but one of our interviews (Steven Rushing) we learned one gun was found at Julius Chambers High School
• An ATF report shows the number of bomb threats targeted at schools has increased more than two-fold from 2019-2021. In 2022, Every Town Search tracked at least 113 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, resulting in 41 deaths and 82 injuries nationally. Who has the answers to stop school gun violence and how would you utilize their resources? 

CMS Superintendent Search

• CMS will start its superintendent search and interviews in earnest after the November elections. For the past decade, the district has had trouble keeping anyone in the top position for more than 3 years. What do you attribute to the superintendent turnover and how will you change this on the board?
• What is the one important question you’ll be asking the next superintendent of CMS schools and what is the answer you want from them to consider them for the job? 

Teacher and Staff Retention

• As of Sept 22, CMS is still searching for more than 350 teachers to fill classrooms. Although the district has current stop gaps to fill these positions like, guest teachers, funding will run out for them. What is in board control to increase teacher and staff retention? 
• In February 2022, WCNC reported at that time about 11% or just over 1,000 of CMS’s teaching staff had retired or resigned. Common reasons we heard for them leaving was pay, morale, school culture, and workload. What is a culture issue CMS is facing and how will you work to fix this? 

CMS Achievement Scores

• WCNC compared four area districts' performance grades to CMS. The schools we compared were Catawba, Union County, Gaston, Cabarrus and CMS. CMS’s grade level proficiency scores were towards the bottom of the batch, but the district growth scores are towards the top. What should parents take away from CMS’s performance scores? 
• On a statewide level, traditional public schools on average had higher grade-level proficiency scores than charter schools. WCNC analyzed area charter schools and CMS’s proficiency levels for Black and Hispanic students. The charter schools had higher proficiency levels for these students than CMS. The number of charter school enrolments for students in North Carolina has increased over the last five years according to the Department of education. How do you keep Black and Hispanic students in traditional public schools when some would argue for decades traditional public school has failed them?

WATCH ALL THE CANDIDATE INTERVIEWS HERE

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Thelma Byers-Bailey: We're heavily relying on our MTSS initiative because that's where we catch those students who are struggling, they're not struggling or not. And the struggle isn't about grades and learning the struggle is about whether or not did I get a meal? Was there a big fight in the house last night? Did my best friend get in get arrested or even hurt? Because of the bad neighborhood violence? Or is there any bullying in the school that's not being addressed? We've got any, we've got more bullying in school than we then is acceptable. And we've got to address it. And that's one of the things that is continuing probably may have gotten the guns out of the school, but we haven't gotten the bullying out yet. And we don't- I'm not satisfied that the school administrations are giving it the weight and the attention that it deserves. We see a lot of issues where the victim is being punished just as much as the aggressor. That's not fair. You know, and you can't expect a child to sit there like this while someone is beaten on them. You know, that's not fair. That's not a realistic expectation. And when you put your arms up and you push back then you treated as sometimes less than more than the person who was beaten on you. And so we've got to turn that around and make that whole process more de-escalate the school, in schools, violence and discipline, our restorative justice, especially for the aggressor. You know, we find out what is it this making this child pick on somebody else what's going on in their lives, hurt people hurt people, and hurt children, hurt children, other children and so if this child is being a repeated aggressor, or even if it's just one person, that's one person too many, we need to find out what is in this child's life that is causing that.  

WATCH BYERS-BAILEY'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Juanrique Hall: Well, first of all, I mean, I think CMS is doing a great job right now. I mean, everything could be can be much better. So I feel like the first thing of it is is you need to tap into the internet and see what's going on, on a lot of these kid's pages. See if high schools have pages where they're talking outside of the school and what's going to go on the next day. Because in certain high school there's only one or two kids that control the whole school. So I would think if we get number one you get a lot more, get more BMT in school ones that handle the girls and ones that handle the boys because a male BMT is scared to touch a girl because here come a situation of you touching me the wrong way. So a man is scared to touch a girl and then you need to have cameras in the classrooms. And then once again, you need a zero tolerance. Myself, a lot of people will be like sitting up saying he's saying that yes, I'm saying that. Because if you have zero tolerance, if you assault somebody, you go to jail, you go from the schoolhouse to the jail, and understand that these are the consequences to hitting somebody because if I can kind of turn it to a death situation quick, you hit somebody they did on the cafeteria floor, and they die. It's no longer child's play. Now. North Carolina is one of the places that will send as a child as an adult to death. So if you don't want your child to die, we need to have the hard consequences for our kids. Well, I think you need to number one, get the community involved in what's going on in the school is a disconnect between the community and the school. When I was going to school, everybody knew everybody in which I know times have changed, but they don't have to be changed that much. We have to get the community activists into the schools we got to get the parents is not working and take the days off to walk the halls. And you know, in the district that I'm in, you really not going to have someone coming to the school, doing shootings, you know, because half of the kids don't have internet even getting the understand what's going on. But I mean, basically, I think it's all starts off at home. This school is doing their job is just when the kids leave school is when the problem becomes. So that's the biggest issue. If we can all just become one big family again. And just start loving our kids up and making them understand we love you regardless if you are A student or D student. Just we need to love them. And that's what they miss.

WATCH HALL'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Monty Witherspoon: I've always been a proponent that we have we need to move beyond just visible representations of safety and to evidence-based that safety measures that provide genuine safe schools and I believe that that happens on many levels at the forefront of it. I think that there intervention measures that should be in place before it even becomes a problem within the school at large. America has North America has a unique problem with our obsession with guns. And I think that we need national, federal legislation that restricts in some way not prohibits or restricts folks who don't need a weapon in their hand. I think that the proliferation of guns contributes to this overwhelming disaster that we see not only in our schools but in society at large. I think that we need to address it at a federal level... curtail gun violence.

WATCH WITHERSPOON'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

Thelma Byers-Bailey: Well, you know, someone asked me that on paper. And so I said at the time to sit down and go back through the superintendent changes just since I've been on the board, and I've been on the board for nine years. More than half of our transition superintendents leaving left on their own accord. So you know, we have to deal with what happens when things happen. And they find it's known this is no longer the place for them, we have to accept that this last transition that we're going through, or just got the interim because that was a different situation. And I cannot say that that wasn't the board's fault. Because we hired someone who we felt had credentials that we needed that fill the spots that the prior superintendents had, we had issues with. And we felt that at the time, this is pre-COVID when we heard that he could learn, you know when he was going through intensive training on principalship. We had good staff to support him. And then COVID hit and the pressures just escalated. Nobody knew how to deal with that everybody was fumbling, and he fumbled too. And it was to the point that when we were coming out of COVID, it was just so traumatic, that it wasn't didn't feel like we were going to be able to, you know, recover quickly enough because we needed to rebound and we needed to rebound fast. And he didn't have the skill set that we needed at that time to lead the charge for that. You know, that rebound, which is why we had to let him go. It was but as far as I'm concerned, that was our fault. Don't discount the need for expertise. If a for and experience. You know, this is a large school system, it is multifaceted. And we can't discount the fact that it we need somebody that knows how to guide a ship. You can't you just can't rely on training to make up for that. How large is your system? And what's the diversity? What what have you done- What have you done that you can point to that cured the problems that we're having? We have, we are a minority-majority school system. We have students that come to us with issues that prevent them from being able to learn what it is point to me, What have you done to address these issues to turn around students is not about turning around the school, you can't turn around the school until you turn around the students. And so what have you done to address the issues that our children come to that are barriers to their learning, in your in your previous experience? So those are the kinds of issues people that you can show me that they can address and lead a system and have the expertise to identify people who are not up to snuff in that particular area. And be and have the courage to move them aside and put somebody in that spot that can do it. We can't just let somebody be this the leader of a facility for four or five years and the student school remains having not achieved growth, in my opinion, you're not going to get accomplishment, you're not going to get threes and fours in achievement until you get double-digit growth, you've got to exceed growth year over year over year in order to bring the students up to up to speed so they can learn. And that's when they will make those fours and fives.

WATCH BYERS-BAILEY'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Juanrique Hall: Well, the first thing of it is, I'm a big person on a person's credibility and who they are and who they are as a person. So, basically, I will say, if they will go out and look for a person not own their educational background and how many degrees they have, more so look for a person that is is is a credible person that has a unique style about them. Purposefully, somebody that's from a small town, they got small town- understand the simple needs of a child, such as having vocational things in school, a unique way of, of educating kids, because everybody don't sit in a classroom in a chair and learn. Like myself, I need to move around, I need to use my hands, I need a teacher, they can interact with me, in case I am a Hispanic person, or somebody that has special needs. We need a person that understands the whole spectrum of education and not being in the sandbox, this wish we had now that's the reason why we haven't problems now, everybody wants to jump in their little sandbox and say this the way educators need to be and the world has changed a lot since I was young. And I'm 50. How are you going to address the needs when Title XI comes to you and give you a report on a teacher that's doing wrong? Or maybe a coach is doing wrong? How are you going to address that? Because right now, Title XI can come in and say this teacher is doing this. And it's up to the principal. And I think that needs to be taken out of the principal's hand, and solely let the superintendent make that issue because sometimes you can let an issue go past. And like with certain schools, it was a person there that if Title XI hadn't had did their job, they would have been still in the school doing wrong. 

WATCH HALL'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Monty Witherspoon: Sure, you know, there's some folks that are on the board that have overseen six leadership changes by the hiring firing resignation. I think that there's a culture problem amongst the board members. And that needs to be addressed. I think that we need new leadership to bring in stable superintendent leadership that I think is important for a viable district. So as with me being on the board, I work cooperatively with other board members to ensure that we select the right person, we want a long-term superintendent to provide stability for the district. One of the things I believe that we need to upend is this the deficiency paradigm that supports the ideology that black students and poor students can learn because of their background. And so my question would be to the superintendent, do they believe or does that individual believe he or she, that Black students and students who come from low-income homes can learn based on their domestic environment?

WATCH WITHERSPOON'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

Thelma Byers-Bailey: The biggest problem we have is we don't pay enough to incentivize people to come work. There are people there are counties and states around us that pay veteran teachers much more than we do. We don't we have so many barriers for teachers who have credentials that come from out of state. And they have to jump through incredible hoops to try to get on board. We've got, we don't have them staff, but we have people in that are waiting to try to get through HR, because their license is from out of state, they don't have the license that the North Carolina requires, we are moved spending a lot of time lobbying the legislature to get rid of some of the barriers and to allow us to pay our teachers more, we have retired teachers that are sitting home, that are have been with us for years that have all the credentials and all the skills we need. But the state won't let them come back to work without incurring some financial barriers that they don't really that's not fair. And they want to come back. But um, so we're lobbying. We're lobbying the state, continually bombarding, we have a fantastic cadre of local legislators who are very supportive of our concerns, and are constantly, you know, championing the causes that we are we are trying to put into place. So they'll allow us to hire people that are here in town, who want to come back to us, but you know, have all these barriers, financial barriers and licensure barriers, when we were running into teachers that retired, they knew they weren't going to come back because of the financial barriers were, were not didn't make it worth their while. So they let their licenses expire. So now they've got two barriers, they've got a financial barrier, and then they've got a license barrier. So we were struggling with the infrastructure that will prevent that's preventing us from getting the people that we know are, are surrounding us about that would love to help us. But you know, we can't make it worth their while. Well, I'm sure we do have, I'm certain we have schools that have culture issues. And it's a hangover from the past administrations, we're right now in transition with our interim superintendent, and we'll be looking at starting a superintendent search shortly to where we need some stability. And that's once we get stability within our administration, then we will be able to focus more targetly on the stability and make sure we have staff that have tuned in to the new culture for our students, for our staff, and all of our and all of our support system.

WATCH BYERS-BAILEY'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Juanrique Hall: As a board member, first of all, I want to give the teachers above average living wage, that's the first and foremost, the second, I want them to have bonuses. I want them to feel that they are needed and loved. Our teachers need to know that they just like our superheroes of today. They need to know if a child is messing up in class, they take them out of the classroom, they distract them from the classroom and take them to the principal's office, that child should go home, it shouldn't be a zero tolerance if we have to get the respect back for the kids. For the teachers, if we get the respect back in the pay because everybody knows if you pay a person, right, they will beat you to work. The culture is the behavior of the kids, the kids know that they run the school. And we need to change the narrative right now to abnormal is normal and CMS and we need to take and make normal again, kids need to understand if you disrespect an adult it's consequences. And right now till this day, we're not discipline our child is kids, we wait till they adults and somebody else had to discipline. So until we get the respect level back and CMS, you're going to always have that problem. And another thing we need to do is tap into our military veterans that's here in North Carolina does have bachelor's degrees, and they're sitting at home. And they would love to come into the school system and teach the kids because they have a history of dealing with all types of situations. And I'm sure if you dealt with the military and events and stuff and get them in school, it'd be a better, much, much better discipline in the school system. 

WATCH HALL'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Monty Witherspoon: Well, I think long term, we have to really consider a strong teacher residency program that provides a pipeline of- of teachers into CMS, especially teachers of color, black, black teachers, we need a pipeline of those teachers. Short term, I think that we, what we can do now is provide significant stipends and sign-on bonuses for teachers, especially in critical needs areas such as EC teachers. Well, I believe, at the beginning of the year, there were 55, vacancies and CMS. And so math and science teachers as well. I think we just need to provide, we should provide more significant signing bonuses. Well, I think that teachers have taken on much of the blame for the failure rate school grades and CMS, I've talked to teachers who have done everything that a district has told them to do down to the tee. And yet we still have these performance outcomes. I think that it is a systemic issue, not from the bottom up, but from the top down. And I think with clear goals, and objectives that are measurable. Teachers know exactly what is expected to them and of them and what the goals are think that provides some clarity for them. But they've done a tremendous job even before the pandemic and throughout the pandemic. But then you have layers of issues, such as the type of materials that are taught in schools that come you know, this, we're sort of in this sort of culture war right now, we've kind of moved away from instruction to these culture wars. But I think that if we return back to what teaching and what takes place in the classroom, and providing teachers with the support that they need, in order to prepare students for the next grade level, I think that's what the goal of the school board should be. 

WATCH WITHERSPOON'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

Thelma Byers-Bailey: That we are putting the pedal to the metal. It because as I said, you're not going to get those scores up until you bring the children up to grade level. And then they can learn then they have the ability and background to learn what they're supposed to be learning at that grade and- absorb it ... If I were a parent, I'd probably be right there in the train, looking for something better for my children. We, CMS has a lot of issues. CMS has a lot of good stuff going on. I had two grandchildren that were in California school high schools, and they weren't failing. They just weren't offered my grandchildren what they needed. And I had the family move them here. And they graduated from CMS schools and are in college. So we've got good stuff going on. But the students that are failing, we haven't that MTSS system for us is not pulling its weight. It's doing really well. And part of the reason is we don't have the counselors, social workers, and psychologists necessary to fully staff the schools to you know, you can't expect a counselor that is suppose say, and I don't remember the exact statistics, but they have each one of those groups have a caseload and the national average for how many students a case, caseload should be and expect that person to handle and handle effectively. We, we don't even get close. If the caseload for social worker is 75. In our case, social workers are probably having three and 400 students. So we haven't staff that every time we put that in our budget, we don't get back the amount of money we expect, we've asked for, just to fund that. We can't fund it with the Esser and all the other one-time things because once that money goes, that money only lasts till 2024. Once that happens, we can't say okay, well, we don't have any more money, you can go home now, because the problem will still be there. We need more money. And we needed to we need funding that is not temporary, so that we can have we can get the people in the schools. When we have partners that are working with us diligently. We have the I believe it's Atrium funded by let's see Bank of America- Bank of America, okay, I keep getting those- who are funding the pilot program where health issues are not going to be a problem for our students anymore if you got and because they're losing time in the classroom, you can't expect them to, to progress if they've got 10 and 20 and 30 missed days in the classroom. So we're trying to resolve the health issues so that they can get back to class. You know, they've got a fever, we got to elder nurse do it she'll premiere when the doctor who prescribed something, you get your medicated so you can go back to class and your parents don't have to come get you and take it to the doctor. So we've got a lot of things that are coming on board that this is a pilot that's coming on board this year. So you know, but that MTSS has got to be more effective in helping the students get rid of the barriers so they can get to class, stay in class and pay attention and so that they can learn.

WATCH BYERS-BAILEY'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Juanrique Hall: Well, first of all, Gaston County, you say Catawba County ... you can't even compare those to Charlotte, North Carolina. You talking about little county schools. We're talking about little county school, we are in a big metropolis. Our kids are exposed to things that half of those kids don't see till they get grown. So the things that our kids have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. They don't have to see them in the county. I'm from Chester County. Everybody go to elementary together go to high school together. You- they still build in high schools in Charlotte. So like, in district two- you can walk off campus and be on Beatties Ford Road into everything. Everything. See, our kids are dealing with a total different spectrum of problems than a kid is dealing with in a little town. And the only way to answer to your question is the only way I kid's gonna get better is to have these simple wraparound things are they doing good when they hit school is the problem when they leave. Our kids don't have lights. Our kids don't have water. Some of them don't even have internet, some of them only have a parent at home when they get there. So until we address the simple needs of our kids, we can't go no farther because half of them hungry. The only meal they get at school is the school, the school food and they come home, they got to go out and get a job and work and then they get home. They got to get ready for school and they don't even have time to do they homework. So we're not dealing with kids of our day. We're dealing with young adults now. So they deal with adult issues. So until we get our kids back to being kids, we're gonna keep having the same problems. What I will say I don't think CMS has failed to kids, not one time I am I graduated from CMS. My daughter's in CMS. I have a daughter that's a bilingual she goes to Oaklawn with Hispanic kids. I have a daughter just graduated from Northwest School of the Arts. She's going to school to be a veterinarian. It's all about once again, we cannot put our problem on CMS. Our problem lies at home. We have to get the parents back involved. We have to have some type of tutoring session for the parents because my daughter come home and I can't even help her with her math. Okay, and I thought I was doing math right until they told me they had new math and I'm lost. I mean, hey, Math has changed, things have changed. I mean, I used to go knock on the door to say hey to a girl now you could just do it through the phone. So I mean, it's life has changed. So CMS is doing a great job. It's just a simple fact that a married We have gotten into a nation that I want my child to do this. And some people want their kids to have what they think is better. So who am I or you or anybody else to tell them not to take their child and their federal dollars over here to do this? Or my child goes to Oaklawn, Oaklawn Language Academy because I want her to be bilingual. Now she is taking dance at Northwest she wants to be obstetrician in the sixth grade she already know what she wants to do. So I feel that if a parent can afford to, or have the wherewithal in their mind to say I want to better my child then let them do so. It has nothing to do with CMS or the charter school or you got some go to Country Day. You got some go to Charlotte Latin, you got some go to Charlotte, Christian. It's all about what you want for your child. And I applaud any parent that want better but I'm not saying I think CMS is did a great job. I graduated from CMS and I'm a great person.

WATCH HALL'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Monty Witherspoon: Well, I think that growth is extremely important. Also proficiency. I know that there's a conversation now, that is emerging about how we grade, how schools are graded. 80% 20% proficiency and growth. But I think growth is very important. But we also want our students to be proficient, especially in districts like District Two, where you have predominantly black and lower-income students there. We don't want to lower our standards, our expectations, just to keep up with growth. But I think growth is important, but we can't lose sight of bringing students up to proficiency levels. Well, I think also you have to disaggregate that data as well, how well were students performing? While they were in CMS? Are they taking the cream of the crop and accepting them into these charter schools? Or are these charter schools that are performing at high levels? Are they accepting some of the more low-performing students? So I think we have to disaggregate that data. But I think at the core, that there are some critical challenges facing students of color and students who are who live in poverty when it comes to performance in Charlotte Mecklenburg schools, but I am a proponent of public education and supporting public schools and making them stronger and better.

WATCH WITHERSPOON'S FULL INTERVIEW HERE

**NOTE: All of these quotes are transcriptions of their on-camera interviews with Morrison**

As a reminder, early voting in North Carolina starts Oct. 20 and lasts through Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022, at 3 p.m. After Nov. 5, you may register to vote during the one-stop early voting period. This process is called “Same-Day Registration.” Complete details on registering to vote in North Carolina and the qualifications you need to meet can be found on the North Carolina State Board of Elections website.  

North Carolina voters are not required to show a photo ID.  If you are a DMV customer with an N.C. driver’s license or DMV-issued ID, you may now register to vote or change certain parts of your registration online.

Register to vote in North Carolina here.

Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.