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Candidates for CMS school board at the Forum

 

Page initiated August, 2011

The Aug. 9 Forum began a series of appearances by candidates for at-large election to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. The election is Nov. 8. The first six candidates appeared Aug. 9, two more on Aug. 16, another Oct. 25.

At each Forum where candidates spoke, candidates made introductory remarks, then answered questions. On this page, the introductory comments will be taken first, then the questions. Given that their appearances came at more than one Forum, the questions answered by the candidates will vary.

In the material below, some of the video was out of focus or otherwise unusable. Where that occurred, a still photo has been used in place of the video or a portion of the video. Every effort has been made to keep the audio complete.

 

 

 

Introductory comments

Elyse Dashew, Aug. 9

Aaron Pomis, Aug. 9

Ericka Ellis-Stewart, Aug. 9

Tim Morgan, Aug. 9

Mary McCray, Aug. 9

Hans Plotseneder, Aug. 9

Larry Bumgarner, Aug. 16

Lloyd Scher, Aug. 16

Darrin Rankin, Oct. 25

 

Questions from Aug. 9

Following regular Forum procedure, questioners were recognized by the moderator, and candidates present were invited to answer in the order in which they were sitting at the table. On the next question, the order in which the candidates answered was reversed.

It is the policy of this website not to identify Forum participants unless they were invited to speak or they are public officials. For that reason, audio or video of the questions is not used here. The questions have been paraphrased.

In the video that appears below each paraphrased question, all answers offered by the candidates have been included.

YouTube allows a choice of three pictures to represent the content of a video. In none of the 10 videos from Aug. 9 did the YouTube algorithm choose the image of Hans Plotseneder; we apologize for his absense in the display below. With the remaining five candidates, we have adjusted the picture choices so that, as YouTube finishes processing, each candidate should appear twice in the page below.

 

 

1. How will you partner with other board members so the board functions well?

 

2. What's your view of the large bureaucracy amassed during the last administration, in terms of your superintendent search? And what's your view of teaching to the test vs. teaching children?

 

 

3. How will you promote the different teaching methods and high expectations that are required to allow students, who learn differently, to excel irrespective of their location or race or family economic circumstance?

 

 

4. Would you agree that black students have been uniquely damaged and that they require unique educational strategies to overcome that damage?

 

 

5. How would you have voted on the proposal before the board last spring to close schools?

 

 

6. What do you have in you to resist cutbacks to special education?

 

 

7. What ways beyond testing would you support to measure student learning?

 

 

8. What one policy change would you give priority to in order to bring about all the school reform changes being discussed?

 

 

9. Would you support the revival of "baseline standards" that specified goals for teacher preparation and experience, media center holdings and classroom materials in every school?

 

 

10. How will you get a good teacher in every classroom when Human Resources is routing the best applicants to southeast Charlotte schools?

 





Questions from Aug. 16

It is the policy of this website not to identify Forum participants unless they were invited to speak or they are public officials. For that reason, audio or video of the questions is not used here. The questions have been paraphrased.

In the video that appears below each paraphrased question, all answers offered by the candidates have been included.

 

 

1. Do you support taxing authority for the school board?

 

2. Do you embrace the concept that African-Americans have been uniquely damaged by the legacy of slavery and require special strategies?

 

3. Would you make the school board's budget more transparent and protect the schools' reserves?

 

4. How would taxing authority work when most of the schools' revenue is from the state?

 

5. How would you improve achievement in CMS without talking about charter schools?

 

6. State law allows a district to change a struggling district school into a charter school. Do you favor that provision?

 

7. On high school graduates requiring remedial courses at CPCC: Is there evidence that the need for remediation is lower among graduates of other area school systems?

 

8. How many websites do you have?

 

9. Are charter schools a return to separate-and-unequal education?

 

10. To attract the best superintendent, there must not be bickering on the board. What will you do to promote harmony?

 

11. How would you address behavioral and health and mental health issues that are lowering achievement at fragile schools?

 

12. Would you mandate the teaching of black history both to teachers and to students?

 

 

 

 

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