Mike Sharp, 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.

Mike Sharp is competing in the Nov. 2 general election against George Griffin, Ryan Jackson, Riza Jenkins, Meredith Pruitt 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: Mike Sharp

Age: 54

Residence: 1012 Mt. Carmel Church Road, Chapel Hill

Occupation: Teacher

Education: Bachelor of Science, Computing and Information Sciences, Trinity University; Master of Science, Computer Science, UNC-Chapel Hill; Master of Education, Elementary Education, UNC-Greensboro

Political or civic experience: None

Campaign website: sharpforschoolboard.site

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

▪ Working to remove the “opportunity gap”

▪ Establishing a better system for implementing and tracking the success of district initiatives

▪ Strengthening relationships between families, their schools, and the community at large

To clarify, the “opportunity gap” represents the difference in grades, test scores, opportunities for advancement, discipline referrals, and more(!) between white students and students of color in our district. I’ve been told by the district every year (since I started teaching here in 2002) that we are “working on it.” I’ve seen programs come and go fairly often, all promising to make a difference, but we know the numbers are just as bad as they were when schools were first desegregated!

Our solution needs to be multi-faceted. First, we need to make more conscious efforts to hire and retain staff at every level who represent and approximate the diversity of our community. Second, we need to implement racial equity training in every school (and among administration) that helps staff to understand the ways in which our systems are failing our students of color. This training has begun, in my experience, many many times but fizzled out within a year. Hence the need, as I mentioned earlier, for accountability and data tracking our efforts. We also need to ensure that trainings continue even when staff starts to feel uncomfortable, as we recognize that’s an important part of how we grow and learn about such emotional subjects. Third, we need to use that newfound training to examine our current (and especially our long-established) practices and throw out whatever doesn’t bring us closer.

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

Our district provides an amazing array of opportunities for student growth that can be tailored to each student. We have highly effective staff who go out of their way to reach students at their own level. Our EC and EL teachers, AIG teachers, literacy and math coaches, work tirelessly to help all of us recognize what each child needs in order to succeed. We provide impressive specialty programming like dual language programs and our fantastic CTE courses (which help to normalize other career paths and match students with their dream jobs!).

As I mentioned previously, however, we are not doing a good job of ensuring that all these opportunities are available to all of our community. We have clubs and athletic teams with almost no racial diversity. We have enrollment in some language programs that doesn’t match the racial balance of our town. And we are developing kids who feel that their school has left them stranded. We can do better, and we owe it to all our students to get there.

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

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that putting another old white guy like me on the school board does not help with having representation at all levels. If there were another candidate of color, or female, or otherwise representative of a marginalized group of our town — who also had the same skills that I can offer — I would happily step aside.

I have chosen to run specifically because I think I have experience and understanding — from being a veteran teacher in the district — that other candidates would not have accessed. In particular, I have seen programs come and go to solve our equity problems, and I know from the front lines why they were not successful (or WERE successful but were discontinued anyway!) at my schools and my colleagues’ schools. With Lincoln Center employees changing roughly every two years, it’s the veteran teachers who have kept the institutional memory needed to properly evaluate any future initiatives!

This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Mike Sharp, candidate for Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board."