Local Elected Officials Host Education Forum

Parents, teachers and community members are speaking up about education in Orange County. Chapel-Hill Carrboro City School Board member Rani Dasi and Orange County commissioner elect Mark Marcoplos hosted a forum Wednesday so all could come together and discuss the issues.

Orange County residents brought up subjects ranging from the two bonds that passed during the election: one to update school security and safety, and another to create more affordable housing units– To what should be taught in Orange County schools. But a main subject was how the presidential election would affect students in the future.

“My curiosity about talking about education is the concern I have about just how much civics is a part of education and whether it’s a requirement or not,” said Tom O’Dwyer, long-time Chapel Hill resident. “And my opinion, based on my observations over the years but most of all in this election, I feel that civics should be a mandatory course, and you can’t even graduate from high school unless you pass it.”

O’Dwyer has also had two children graduate from the Orange County school system. He said it’s important for today’s students to understand and retain civics, even though the class is already required in North Carolina public high schools.

“And some people say well that’s because they don’t care,” he said. “Well, first you have to know to understand why you care or you don’t care.”

Former Orange County teacher Al Baldwin said it’s also important to support teachers who want to speak about the election with students. Baldwin compared the fear of open discussion in the classroom to navigating these topics in schools after 9/11.

“When the board of Orange County does not even support a teacher, who was simply dealing with what’s out there, then where are kids supposed to talk about these things, if not with a teacher?” He said. “And I hope this board would not do that.”

Alissa Ellis is the Deputy Director of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History. She also attended the forum, and said it’s most important that students have an open space to openly discuss topics such as politics, racism and equity. She said many students currently don’t feel safe enough to do so.

“They’re incredibly intuitive,” she said. “From as young as my son who’s in, you know, second grade who doesn’t want to identify as Latino because he passes as white. He sees the treatment whether it’s from other peers or from teachers. And I think that it’s really important to open up spaces like this and particularly as our students publicly share their stories. And not just the same students because they’re asked continually and it can be a really difficult thing to share.”

However, Dasi said the important thing is to keep the discussion going. She said, not every education issue can be solved in one discussion and one night. But it’s a start.

“When Mark and I first started talking about this, our hope was that we would really get more of a conversation started here that will go around the county so that we can better understand the needs more regionally than kind of in our specific space,” she said.

Dasi and Marcoplos will host another education forum on November 30 at the Whitted Building in Hillsborough.

Local Elected Officials Host Education Forum

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

On Air Now: 97.9 FM