Doug Hammack, candidate for Wake County Board of Education District 3
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District 3 candidates for Wake County Board of Education
Roxie Cash is not running for another term in 2022. Those running to replace her are Doug Hammack, Brooks Lowe and Wing Ng. Get to know the candidates with our NC 2022 Voter Guide.
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Name: Doug Hammack
Political party: Democrat
Age as of Nov. 8, 2022: 64
Campaign website: https://dougforwake.com/
Occupation: Minister
Education: B.S. in history from University of California San Diego; MDiv. in history and theology and DMin in leadership development from Fuller Seminary
Have you run for elected office before? No
Please list highlights of your civic involvement: I’ve led a church for 30 years, deeply engaged in social justice. We are founding members of ONE Wake, focused on affordable housing, living wage, and public schools in Wake County. I tutored at East Millbrook Middle when my kids were in school there.
Why do you want to serve on the Wake County Board of Education?
As a child, my family system was in steep decline, but I lived in a great school district. Education exposed me to, and created opportunities for, a very different life. And now that I’m old, I feel keenly the debt I owe to teachers, school board members, county commissioners, and state leaders who made my quality education possible. I will work to ensure the children in Wake County have great schools and great opportunities next year, but also for the decades to come.
What are the Wake County Public Schools doing well?
Our graduation rates are excellent. Our acceptance rate into colleges and vocational training is excellent. The number of nationally board certified teachers we have is excellent. Our in-service training for teachers is also excellent! Our educational outcomes are the envy of the nation. We’ve got a lot going right.
What would be your three top priorities if elected? Choose one, and explain how you would address it.
My three top priorities would be teachers, teachers, teachers! We are losing qualified teachers at an alarming rate. Teacher pay is a primary issue, but not decided at the school board. What the school board CAN do is change the narrative about the profession, and restore dignity and respect to the profession. School board members can use the bully pulpit to elevate the importance of teachers, and call on state leaders to support our county commission, and pay teachers what they are worth.
What should the district do in response to calls to remove books from schools that some say are inappropriate for students?
If a truly age-inappropriate book has found its way into a school, sure, remove it. But that’s NOT what’s driving this current emphasis on book banning. There is a nationally organized attempt to find wedge issues and push them to the local level, to inflame people and influence elections. I think school boards should be about schools. We should focus much more on bus drivers, teaching assistants, reading specialists — things that will actually make a difference in our children’s education.
How should schools discuss issues involving discrimination based on race, gender and other factors?
Of course we want to teach our students an accurate, unflinching account of our nation’s troubled racial history. But these screamers showing up at school board meetings are responding to a nationally organized campaign to inflame people and win elections. Ulterior motives like that are not a school board’s focus. Our focus should be on the brass tacks of getting our kids a good education. A lot more focus on teachers. A lot less focus on wedge issues.
How would you go about making schools safer in the aftermath of school shootings such as in Uvalde, Texas?
A recent external audit told us WCPSS is doing a lot right with school safety. An annual internal audit helps us practice constant improvement. I would continue this rigorous strategy for making our schools safe. Additionally, I think there is room to improve the psychological and emotional approach to prevention. I would focus on ways to reduce alienation in our student population, improving psychological and emotional services, as well as better access to existing county resources.
What would you do to try to address student learning loss that was exacerbated by the pandemic?
There are several recent initiatives providing extra tutoring for our students. These are valuable. But our most effective way to make up learning loss is an effective, qualified teacher who is properly resourced. The pandemic was a once-in-a-lifetime event in our nation. Our teachers know how to catch students up. Our best approach is to resource, encourage, and pay them.
What’s the appropriate level of funding that should be provided to Wake County schools?
Appropriate is a subjective term. My own opinion is that the per-pupil spending that North Carolina and Wake County provided our students in the 1980s and ‘90s is the reason we have such great educational outcomes now. I would return to per-pupil spending levels (adjusted for inflation) from the years before 2008.
This story was originally published October 20, 2022 at 5:17 PM.
