Last night Riza Jenkins, Mike Sharp and George Griffin got elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education. They spent much of the campaign working together and that didn’t change on election night.
All three candidates gathered at Riza Jenkins’ house to celebrate their victory.
Riza Jenkins returned to her home shortly after polls closed at 7:30 p.m. She greeted voters at the polls since 6:30 a.m. but the chaos didn’t stop once she reached the driveway.
Her three children were running around the house, guests were coming in and out, and she was frantically trying to set up her home with food, drinks, and COVID-19 safety protections for the guests at her election night party.
Eventually, Jenkins got to take a breath. She saw the election results. She had won the election for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education along with Mike Sharp and George Griffin.
All three candidates gathered at Jenkins’ house. They were the only ones endorsed for the board of education race by local groups like Indy Week, The Daily Tar Heel and the Progressive Democrats.
Sharp said they didn’t know each other before the campaign, but decided to endorse one another because they shared similar visions for the direction of the board.
“We discovered quickly that we had a lot of the same priorities and that’s what gave us the impetus to support each other,” Sharp said.
The three candidates come from different backgrounds. Sharp is a teacher; Jenkins is a mother and P.T.A. member and Griffin is a former principal.
Jenkins said having diversity in viewpoints is part of what made the night so special.
“Being a single parent, it’s going to be an opportunity to provide a different voice, a different perspective to the board that I think we haven’t really had,” she said. “Hopefully we can bring some great decisions and outcomes for students.”
At polling stations throughout Orange County, the three candidates handed out navy blue campaign pamphlets urging voters to select the trio.
Campaign pins and flyers were handed out to voters from three of the CHCCS school board candidates: Mike Sharp, Riza Jenkins and George Griffin.
While they each said it was exhausting being outside for 13 hours, Sharp said it meant a lot to see how much voters cared about education issues.
“I started working at 6:30 and went all the way until 7:30 and then went home and started watching to find out the numbers and it was absolutely exhausting,” Sharp said. “Every time it was exhausting, I heard from someone who supported me and I was reinvigorated.”
At the end of the night, Griffin, Jenkins and Sharp earned more than 85 percent of the total vote, beating out the other three candidates. Jenkins said they will continue to engage in dialogue together as they join the four returning members of the CHCCS Board of Education in the winter.
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