Meredith Pruitt, candidate for Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board

Six newcomers are running in November for one of three seats on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board.

UNC Health Care Vice President Meredith Pruitt is competing in the Nov. 2 general election against George Griffin, Ryan Jackson, Riza Jenkins, Mike Sharp and Tim Sookram.

Board member Lisa Kaylie, who was appointed earlier this year to serve out now-Orange County Commissioner Amy Fowler’s term, and board members Mary Ann Wolf and Joal Broun, who was appointed to be a District Court judge, are not seeking re-election.

Early voting in the nonpartisan Nov. 2 election begins Oct. 14 and runs through Oct. 30.

To find polling places and full details on early voting, visit co.orange.nc.us/1720/Elections or contact the Board of Elections at 919-245-2350 or vote@orangecountync.gov.

Name: Meredith Pruitt

Age: 45

Residence: Chapel Hill

Occupation: Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, UNC Health

Education: Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and English, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, Vermont

Political or civic experience: A 10-year resident of North Carolina, Meredith is currently the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at UNC Health. Formerly, she served as Chief of Staff and Senior Vice President at the UNC System. Meredith came to the UNC System from Davidson College, where she served as Special Assistant to the President. Prior to her time in North Carolina, Meredith spent 13 years in Washington, DC, and New York City. Most notably, she served as a senior adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Education on top policy initiatives and programs. Previous to her time at the Department of Education, she represented a broad range of education and nonprofit clients at several global public affairs firms. She began her career on Capitol Hill.

Campaign website: meredithpruitt.com

What do you think are the district’s top three priorities? Choose one and describe how you will work to address it.

▪ Ensuring that students are learning full time and in person with a focus on the fundamentals of reading, math, and science to prepare for them to think critically and lead in a global economy

▪ Tackling the pervasive opportunity gap that exists in our district through data-driven policies, programs and solutions

▪ Empowering teachers, principals, and administrators with greater professional development opportunities and enhanced skills training.

On Sept. 1, The News and Observer reported the 2020-21 end-of-year testing results for our district, giving us a glimpse of what the past year and a half out of school has cost our students. The results? Only 61.8% of our students are on grade level. Said another way, our district received a D- on ensuring our students are proficient in reading and math.

Moreover, the majority of students who are not on grade level in our district are minority and low income. We can and must do better. Focusing on the fundamentals of reading, math and science is paramount to my platform — and I would begin with reading.

According to The Children’s Reading Foundation, “Without a strong foundation in reading, children are left behind at the beginning of their education. They lag in every class, year after year because more than 85% of the curriculum is taught by reading. And by the end of third grade, 74% of struggling readers won’t ever catch up. In fact, one of the most important predictors of graduating from high school is reading proficiently by the end of third grade.”

If elected, I will take this issue head on. I will work with my fellow board members to set clear and measurable reading goals for the District. I will work with the superintendent and principals to empower our teachers with phonetics-based approaches to teaching. I will call on national and statewide literacy experts to identify successful interventions and other strategies to assist struggling readers. And I will work with parent groups like the PTA and afterschool programs like the YMCA to promote and normalize reading.

We live in one of the most well-resourced districts in the state. We live in the backyard of one of the top research universities in the world. We as parents, grandparents, neighbors, taxpayers — whichever role you play — should be deeply concerned that students in our district cannot read on grade level. This is an issue that must be prioritized. This is a problem that we can solve.

What is the school district doing right, and wrong, to support student education?

For a year and a half, our students were denied the opportunity to return to in-person learning, despite reputable scientific findings from the Centers for Disease Control (“little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission”) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (“children absolutely need to return to in-school learning for their healthy development and well-being”).

We cannot allow the pandemic to continue to distract us from the very real needs of our students and the sound, basic education that they are all entitled to. We live in a place that talks a lot about the virtues of respecting and incorporating all voices, but many feel unrepresented in the current dialogue.

We need a board that is strategic, transparent, and communicative. We need a board that wants to tackle the increasingly pervasive opportunity gap that exists in our district. We need to understand how the board prioritizes issues and financial decisions. We need a board who listens and acts.

I am running for BOE because I believe we have a responsibility to do better for our students and those who educate and support them. And if I am elected, I will do just that.

What skill or life experience do you have that would bring diversity to local government?

I have spent over 20 years in education public policy at the national level and on the state level here in North Carolina. It takes humility, leadership, integrity, dedication, and collaboration to serve the public good, and anyone who has worked with me will attest to these traits.

Early on in my career, as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, I worked to bring together unlikely allies — the civil rights and business communities — to broker federal legislation to create a stronger educational accountability system, address the opportunity gap across the country, and enable English-language learners, students in special education, and poor and minority students to thrive academically.

More recently, as chief of staff and senior vice president at the UNC System, I was instrumental in the creation of Higher Expectations, the system’s five-year strategic plan, which outlines measurable goals and metrics to improve educational access and graduation rates and to close the achievement gap. In addition, I was one of the primary architects of myFutureNC, a statewide commission of education, business, and government leaders that focuses on educational attainment and has set an ambitious goal of ensuring that by 2030, 2 million North Carolinians have a post-secondary degree or credential.

If I am elected, I will bring common sense, consensus-building, and problem-solving to the board. In addition, I will bring energy, optimism, and a fresh perspective on educational strategies to CHCCS. I am the product of public school education and the first in my family to graduate from college. I believe that education is the great equalizer, and if elected, it will be my opportunity to pay it forward.

This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 11:01 PM with the headline "Meredith Pruitt, candidate for Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board."