“Viewpoints” is a place on Chapelboro where local people are encouraged to share their unique perspectives on issues affecting our community. If you’d like to contribute a column on an issue you’re concerned about, interesting happenings around town, reflections on local life — or anything else — send a submission to viewpoints@wchl.com.
Helping Student Succeed
A perspective from Krista Millard
My name is Krista Millard. My children have attended traditional public schools in Chatham County since kindergarten. My daughter is in her second year at NC State and my son is a senior at Northwood High School. I am writing to support our current school board and voice my opposition to the “parents first” movement currently making noise within our community. These groups use the words “Liberty” and “Freedom” to ban books and impose their religious ideologies into public school curricula in other communities and I don’t want that to happen here. I believe in ONE CHATHAM FOR ALL STUDENTS.
- Putting parents first will not help our students succeed. Our current school board puts students
- Adding “noise” to our school board will not help our students succeed, but bring non-relevant conversations into student education that do not impact student growth or achievement.
- Banning books will not help our students succeed.
- Parents reviewing social studies curriculum, written by the State of NC, will not help our students succeed.
What will help our students succeed:
- Focusing on giving our students the resources they need to graduate and go to bright and prosperous futures. This has been and should always be the focus of the current board of education members.
- Expanding programs like AVID, which our current board members voted to do.
- Expanding programs that increase the percentage of students reading on grade level by the third grade, an early indicator of high school success and on-time graduation. This has been the focus of our current board members.
- Supporting our teachers and respecting the teaching profession.
- Pushing for salary increases for our teachers so we can recruit and retain high quality teachers in every classroom
- As a community, we should spend our efforts pushing the state to be accountable and push for more funding. If the legislature would fund the already approved remediation plan for NC public schools, Leandro (which the BOE passed a resolution on last year), Chatham County Schools would have an additional $18.7 million to spend.
In my 20+ years in Chatham County I have worked within the schools with the Chatham Education Foundation, the Chatham Arts Council, as a PTA Board Member, Booster Club President, a substitute Media Assistant, PTA Thrift Shop Board Member, and have had the privilege of riding on the Bookmobile which serves students in Siler City during summer break. I have witnessed firsthand in almost every one of our traditional public schools the exceptional work our teaching staff and administrators are doing. The thought of “parents first” groups making decisions about which books our children have access to is mindboggling. Why would we want to move backward? We should continue to MOVE FORWARD and provide inclusive, respectful, safe, and nurturing school environments for all students and staff.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
