In an election cycle with the most candidates for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education in memory, four separated themselves at the ballot box.
Rani Dasi, Barbara Fedders, Meredith Ballew and Vickie Feaster Fornville were the top vote-earners among the field of more than a dozen people on Tuesday. Dasi, who is a two-term incumbent, led the pack with 20.1 percent of the vote (11,628 total votes) after all of the precincts reported results. Fedders earned the second-most with 19.2 percent, with Ballew and Fornville coming after that will 11.3 and 9.3 percent respectively.
Mariela Hernandez finished fifth with 7.7 percent of the votes, with Allison Willis in sixth with 7.55 percent. Honoria Middough was close behind with 7.54 percent, with Deon Temne finishing next with 5.8 percent of the vote.
A large gap was between the remaining slate, with Taylor Tally, Jane Gabin and Ashton Powell in the following tier. Solomon Gibson III, Renée Peet, and Michelle Rissling brought up the final trio of candidates on the ballot.
The CHCCS election began under unique circumstances, after no candidates filed for the race during the initial weeks of the July filing period. After a post from the website Triangle Blog Blog indicated a group of candidates with the far-right group Moms for Liberty could run, several people entered the race to try and provide options against those rumored candidates. That never seemed to materialize, with 19 candidates at one point left on the ballot. Several dropped out within the first few weeks, but the cycle was defined by the remaining candidates trying to demonstrate to voters ways they were different from the pack.
Dasi said in a call with 97.9 The Hill that she is grateful to the voters and said she believes it’s a sign that the community is confident in her. Here’s what she said she’s looking forward to in a third term.
“[I’m looking forward to] really just helping with continuity and helping bring the new board members up to speed on the issues and the practices of the board,” she said. “And then continuing to advocate across the state for the appropriate level of investment for public education in North Carolina.”
Dasi cited her excitement of having three new board members who all have different perspectives and have children in the district.
“Certainly, what they’ve indicated during the campaign is their alignment to the strategic plan and their interest in continuing to make progress so that we improve education in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools,” she said.
Fedders, who is a lawyer and associate professor at UNC, has experience working with criminal justice-involved youth. She said she thinks that lens will be critical when crafting and examining policy, with her ability to know what struggling children face is one way her expertise will carry over to the board.
“I think that generally, if you are making policies that are going to help the kids who are struggling the most, it’s going to help everybody,” Fedders told 97.9 The Hill after her election. “Secondly, I think being an attorney is a good skillset to have [on the board] right now, given the political and legal environment that’s coming from Raleigh. We need to stand up for the values of Chapel Hill and Carrboro of inclusion – particularly around LGBTQ issues – and push back against some of this really hateful legislation coming out.”
Ballew, meanwhile, will bring a background of advocacy for students with different learning needs after having worked with the district’s Special Needs Advisory Council.
“I am thrilled that the voters of our community put their trust in me,” said Ballew in a statement to Chapelboro, “and look forward to working on behalf of the students, families and employees of our district. I congratulate Rani, Barb and Vickie and am grateful for the opportunity to work alongside them to improve outcomes for all of our students.”
Fornville also will bring extensive community work to her new role on the board of education, having worked with children on the NAACP Youth Council and on school improvement teams. She said while she recognizes there’s a learning curve with policies, she sees her election as an opportunity to bring more community voices to the district’s administration.
“I can use voices that I know and see from things on the outside and bring into that room,” said Fornville. “So, it’s not that mindset that we’re just talking at the community, we’re talking to the community. We’re hearing [people] and being able to make better decisions, with more people included in the conversation.”
With those results, incumbents Temne and Powell will depart the CHCCS Board of Education after one term each. Board member Jillian La Serna had announced earlier in the summer she would not be seeking another term on the board. Dasi and the three newcomers to the board will be sworn into their terms before the end of the calendar year.
Local election results from races in Orange and Chatham County can be found here.
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There was a plethora of excellent candidates for the school board election. One that didn’t make it was Allison Willis who proposed, based on her experience in NY, having mandatory preschool for all children in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro district. This would be the equalizer that could be a panacea for the bimodal performance of students that come from relatively well to do parents vis a vis those that live in poorer homes or one parent homes where the mother works. Mandatory Preschool is expensive but it has been shown to be a solution
to inequality later in life. Now is the time to cost it out as we evaluate space in schools and
new bond issues. Allison apparently has 4 small children in the school system she has experience in getting a preschool going in a public school system. She was willing to work on the school board. Working this full time as an unpaid consultant is a win-win.
A former PTA president of FPG elementary with 4 proud graduates of the CHC school system all working productively from the Midwest to Oregon.