NC school board flips coin for new member. ‘A sign there are very strong candidates.’
The next member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board was decided Thursday on a coin toss.
Former PTA Council president and special needs advocate Lisa Kaylie will fill the seat vacated when Amy Fowler left the board in November to join the Orange County commissioners. Kaylie will be sworn in March 4 and serve until the term expires in December.
She was among 12 candidates interviewed for the position in January and February. On Thursday, the school board struggled to reach a majority vote on one of four nominees.
It’s “a sign there are very strong candidates,” board Chair Jillian La Serna said.
“Even getting down to the nomination slate, and then getting to the two finalists who went to the coin toss, and to Lisa Kaylie, who will be joining us on the board, it was a very difficult process because of the quality and dedication of all the candidates,” she said.
Board member Ashton Powell, who nominated former school board candidate Carmen Huerta-Bapat, argued that she had the ability to represent the Hispanic community and cited a number of emails sent in support of her candidacy.
“In the past few days, I’ve gotten more emails from Spanish-speaking families than I have in the entire year that I’ve been here,” Powell said. “Just the fact that we’re now getting some more engagement, and even in some of those emails, they made very clear that there is fear in trying to engage sometimes.”
Board member Mary Ann Wolf, who nominated Kaylie, said she did not want to pit one person against another. Each candidate has strengths, she said, but Kaylie can jump in quickly, a plus since the person chosen will hold that seat for only eight months.
“I think that Lisa brings many, many years of dedication to working with our district, to working with our community,” Wolf said. “She also brings a great deal of experience and expertise in working with our students with special needs in particular, but also expertise in communications, and I think something that we’re working very much on here is with transparency and communications, and how do we reach all of our communities.”
After four votes, including three that ended in a tie between Kaylie and Huerta-Bapat, La Serna suggested three options: keep talking and voting, vote at the next meeting, or flip a coin.
While some members expressed discomfort with using a coin toss, the board decided on a 4-2 vote to go ahead. Board member Deon Temne flipped the “coin” using a computer-generated coin toss website. It landed on tails, giving the vote to Kaylie.
In addition to many years serving in the PTA, Kaylie has been a member of the CHCCS Special Needs Advisory Council and is president of Frucon International, an e-commerce services company. She also has been a board member with the Orange/Chatham Chapter of the Autism Society of NC, Kidzu Children’s Museum, N.C. Therapeutic Riding Center and Extraordinary Ventures, among other organizations.
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 7:57 AM.
