Candidate responses

Several candidates were inadvertently omitted from Thursday’s election preview. Their responses are provided below.

School  board

1. Briefly note your education and profession.

2. Note anything you feel qualifies you for this position.

3. Have you run for election before? What position? Were you elected?

4. If elected previously please note 1-3 of your achievements while in office.

5. Please comment on your top 3 goals if elected, and how you would like to achieve them.

6. What do you think the school board has done well in recent years, and where could they have done better?

7. Recent student scores are lower than before the pandemic. How would you get them on track?

8. Comment on RSS student performance compared to state averages and how you would improve them.

9. Open comment. Why voters should elect you.

Michael Chapman

1. I graduated from West Charlotte High School in 1973. I attended Central Piedmont Community College majoring in communications and public speaking. I attended and graduated from the Carolina School Of Broadcasting, and went on to work in the Radio Broadcast industry for a total of 9 years. I worked for Bristol Myers for 6 years and advanced to be the Southeast Regional Education Director. While there I was chosen to be on the Clairol National Show Team. From there I started my own Audio/Video production business and worked full time up to 2018 and then part-time up to now. Upon my retirement, I worked a short time with Rowan-Salisbury Schools as a bus driver and was a teacher’s assistant at East Rowan in the summer of 2021. From October of 2021 to present I’ve been working as a bus driver and class substitute at Faith Charter School. In 1991 I was appointed by the NC Governor to serve as a commissioner for the Desert Storm Memorial Commission. I successfully acquired a $100,000 donation from the State Of Kuwait. A traveling Desert Storm exhibit was built 2017 to travel the state. I had it brought to the Rowan County Fair this year.

2. First and foremost; as a business owner, I had to think outside the box to find solutions to problems and obstacles to achieve success. All my life I have looked at solutions from a common-sense point of view. As an educator for Bristol Myers, I had to develop lesson plans and find the most effective ways to train groups of people. As a communicator I understand that listening to others is the best way to begin successful communications. Being a board member is not about how long you have been in education. It’s about how you can effectively motivate your staff from the central office to the custodian. Our current board has done a poor job of this as we are hemorrhaging staff in all layers of our district. How is it that a one year old charter school has a waiting list for teachers to work there, yet we have a very large shortage of teachers and support staff.

3.   This is my first run for public office. I was elected in boy scouts at every position they have, as well as to the VP and President of my fraternity in college.

4. N/A

5.  1- Improve Discipline. A teacher cannot teach and a student cannot learn in an environment when there are students constantly being disruptive in the classroom. Teachers are in a difficult situation when the disruptive student is sent to the office, and by the end of the day sent right back to the classroom time after time. You must set firm boundaries and hold the student accountable for breaking those boundaries. The student should first be counseled with the parents to try to understand the situations of the child. A habitual problem student should be removed from the classroom and parents called in. If the parent does not get that child to change their attitude, then the student will be sent home and assigned to virtual academy. The parent would then be responsible for the child attending the on-line education. If they do not comply, then the system can pursue truancy against the parent. The board did not follow up with the new discipline approved in June. When school started, the 2021-22 discipline was still posted on the web site. I had to call and tell them.

2- Progressive education has failed our students. Progressive administrations have dumbed down the scores to an unbelievable low. Teachers are encouraged not to give zeros even if the student did not do their assignments. I want to have our primary schools (k-5) to go back to teaching the basics without all of the distractions. Students need to be taught how to write their name in cursive. (It is a state law! G.S. 115C-81.75) We need to get retired teachers to come back and mentor the younger teachers on how to get our children back to learning. Do you realize that only 19% of our graduates are career or college ready? The 2021-22 DPI district report card released in September was embarrassing. Only 1 of our schools scored above 69 on the Performance Grades. 12 of our 33 schools score below a 40. My opponent who was appointed to the school board keeps saying that, “We are on the right track.” Apparently, people who support her have not been shown the true numbers. You can sugar coat this all you want, but our children are in DEEP trouble of graduating with a sub-par education.

3- Improve fiscal responsibility. Our board has handled purchases with carelessness. Paying over 15% more than market value for a restaurant that the public tax payer has not been told what it will be used for. Paying more for bidding contracts. Two companies bid on two food service items. Company 1 was a little higher than company 2, so company 2 wins 1st bid. Company 1 was a lot lower on bid #2 than company 2 but would not accept the award unless they got both bids. So, company 2 is give contract on both bids… just one problem here. Company 1’s total bids were lower that company 2’s total bids. So, we paid about $21,000 more. The new windows on Salisbury High School will be installed over a one-year period. Every time they break down and set back up is an extra charge. They should be done during the spring into the summer at a constant rate. In transportation, there are routes being run for the middle and high schools two different times. Many of these routes could be combined if we rescheduled those schools’ starting times. We run early college routes which can take an hour and one half to complete where less than 5 students are riding. Why not have the regular bus pick them up and transport them to school. We then can have 2-3 buses to pick them up at those schools Hiring California consultants who charge much more than local consultants, where sometimes they and be handled by the central office. I will propose that we have a monthly incentive for employees to submit ideas to save money.

6. I can honestly say not much. Covid set back the schools across the state. We cannot keep blaming covid, as many schools’ districts have been moving forward unlike ours. These are the worst numbers our system has ever received. We are losing staff every week. Many on this board have not done a good job of follow up directly with the schools. I have been told by many current and former teachers that they cannot point out problems as they fear retaliation. That is wrong and when I’m elected, administration that participates in bulling staff will be reprimanded. The board must have good communications with all of the staff. The main reason that classified staff got raises was due to a possible walk out last November. It still took months to see that raise and it is still not enough. Teachers are frustrated with the lack of action with weak discipline policies, and added requirement to teach. Some folks say that I’m too negative on the district. If the board will not share these bad numbers with you; who will? When my opponent keeps telling people that we are on the right track, how can you believe her? I give you only the truth with the numbers I share on my web site. How can you support a person who will not admit we have problems? When you do, you are doming our children’s futures. Then you have just become part of the problem.

7. The district got on the wrong track when we went to the renewal system. Numbers went down the very next year before Covid. The renewal system has given the progressive educators the keys to their kingdom, and allowed many ideologies to be taught that only parents should teach their children. As I have stated above; to move us forward, we must get k-5 back teaching basics. We must take back control of our classrooms so teachers can teach.

8. It is horrible. We are ranked in the bottom 10% of the school districts in the state. The only thing we rank higher on is diversity. You can praise progressive education for that. I have said this above. Focus on the basics: Remove the class distractions, which include cell phones: Improve better communications with all staff.

9. We need leaders who have done their homework; are not afraid to ask questions and turn over stones; I am that person. We must build bridges with Charter, Private, and Homeschools. As a board, we are responsible for the education of all children, no matter what method their parents choose. We must respect the parents’ rights over their children and not allow gender confusion to be taught. We must respect the heritage of all races of children while not allowing the teaching of material that put one race over another. We must apply tough love to the students without direction. If you are happy with the poor performance of our schools and only want to support your friend; vote for my opponent. If you are ready for someone who will fight for our children’s future; Vote for Michael Chapman

Sabrina Harris

1. I graduated from Garinger High School and was in the top ten percent, which secured me a full academic scholarship to UNC-Charlotte where I studied Psychology.  I  have been a small business owner in Salisbury for the last 8 years. My business is Vibes, the creative arts incubator and I am also the founder of Right Brain 2, INC, a 501C3 organization. Through my business I host space for creatives of Rowan and surrounding counties. I offer classes, host exhibitions and events with a creative focus. My non-profit has a program for elementary school age children called “I win Literacy” to increase their literacy skills using an art based curriculum.

2. I am a parent of 5 children, two of which are currently still attending schools in our county. I am a recent graduate of Leadership Rowan which is a program through our local Rowan Business Chambers. I am married to a wonderful man who attended Rowan Salisbury Schools. I was a tier 1 Rowan Salisbury School volunteer for the last 5 years. I am deaf/hard of hearing and yes that means I am disabled, but it also means I am able to understand our Exceptional Children department staff and the students they serve. While my children were in head start as served on the parent board.

3.I have never run for an election before but I have assisted other candidates in the past during their run for office.

4. My top three goals if I am elected would be School Security, Transparency and Communication. I would like to achieve them by visiting the schools and talking with staff as well as students to get their input on what areas do they believe we are ineffective when it comes to protecting them. I would dedicated time weekly to attend different schools to show my continue support for the students and to improve communication. I plan to make sure that the renewal plan for our schools is understood and to help parents understand it. Last but not least, help to ensure we are communicating effectively during our school board meetings. I am passionate about public education and I believe we need to help our children fall in love with learning.

5. In recent years, our school board did well allowing the community to come in and speak on what they see as an issue. I believe the budget could have been handled better.  That is something I am interesting in learning more about and really looking closely at how funds are allocated as well as sourced.

6. Student scores are low due to students being disengaged and lack of support in and out of the classroom. We need to be honest about our focus as a community and get back to ensuring that our kids have a voice in how they are being taught and our teachers have the support they need. I strongly believe we need to spend the money as a county to take care of our schools and market the good things our school system have.

I strongly believe that our student scores reflect the turnovers we have experienced in leadership. Now that we have someone who is from Rowan County, taught in Rowan County and has a true vested interest in seeing our schools have what they need, we will begin to see changes in our student performance. I believe now we will begin to truly focus on our renewal plan and meet the students where they are. I can’t stress enough that we are not the only county facing challenges with student performance. However we are the only county in NC who has the opportunity to work hard at improving our students, supporting our teachers and lead the way with innovation through our Renewal plan. Choosing people who are passionate about Rowan County education system is the first way that the community can assist in this mission. We can and We shall lead the way for students to be able to compete at a global level. Our first investment that can improve all of our lives in Rowan County should be our education system. Children grow up to be adults, let us all help them be fully equipped to contribute positively to our great county!  I ask for your vote, so that I can help our children, support our teachers and rally our parents be more aware of how they can help.

County commissioner

1. Briefly note your education and profession

2. Note anything else you feel qualifies you for this position.

3. Have you run for election before? What position? Were you successful?

4. If elected previously please note 1-3 of your achievements while in office.

5. Comment on your top three goals if elected, and your strategy for each.

6. Where do you think commissioners have done well in recent years, and where do you think they did poorly?

7. What is your vision for Rowan County’s economic and population growth?

8. How would you address the need for more housing in general and affordable housing?

Sam Post

1. Graduated Salisbury High School and Wake Forest University. Retired instructional technology facilitator, Rowan-Salisbury Schools. 14 years owner/publisher Piedmont Coffee News. Four years owner PhenomWell CBD Store. Lifelong writer (plays, films, blogs, stories, poems).

2. Rowan County students do worse in reading and math than children in all our surrounding counties. Fewer kids go to college. Our per-capita income is lower. This makes us less competitive in many areas. Our all-Republican commissioners have proudly underfunded public schools for decades. I taught at South Rowan, West Middle, North Middle, Morgan, Rockwell, Granite, and Cleveland. As a technology facilitator, I was sensitive to the technology budget, which, in the early years, was not competitive with other school systems in the region. I attended public schools here. One of my parents did. My three children did. Currently, we have more kids in private schools than neighboring counties. In my view, Rowan County got behind decades ago. We will never thrive without adequate investment in good pubic schools. I care about the schools and would be an advocate for spending whatever it takes to catch up and compete with other counties in this region.

3. Never run before.

4. NA

5. I don’t expect to be elected because I’m a progressive Democrat and Rowan County generally elects Republicans by a wide margin. I’m running because I think it’s important for progressives to be heard once in a while, even though they rarely get elected. That said, here are three goals:

1) Advocate for a well-funded, high performing public school system

2) Advocate for better quality of life for people in Rowan County

3) Provide leadership on the commission inside the possibility of restoring Rowan County’s reputation

6. What have they done well? Their performance in the area of economic development has been good for the county. While they still open the meetings with non-inclusive prayer (a clear violation of the spirit of the law with which they got sued) they’ve at least toned-down the drama that was so damaging to our county’s reputation. All the current commissioners voted to spend $285,000, hoping to go the Supreme Court and defend a specific way of praying. That made national news and was harmful to Rowan County. They haven’t changed the prayer much, but they are technically obeying the law. So that’s good.

Where did they do poorly? They manage, but they don’t lead. They never said much about vaccines, if anything, while they watched COVID take more lives in Rowan, per-capita, than most of the other counties in the state.

They’ve moved slowly and reluctantly on building a new Knox-Overton school, when it’s something they could speak about with excitement. A high quality, new school would be a huge benefit to Salisbury. Salisbury is the county seat and the largest municipality in Rowan County. Salisbury needs to thrive in order for the county to thrive.

The school system is the county’s biggest budget item. Republicans have had full control of the commission for decades, so they should assume responsibility for low performance. There’s a tendency to blame somebody else for the problem: the state, the school board, the parents, the kids, the federal government, etc… That’s management, but not leadership.

7.  Rowan County is located on I-85 and is the population center and geographic center of a fast-growing state — so it’s going to grow. We have two hospitals, three colleges, one seminary, and Food Lion. My vision would be that professionals who work at these institutions, and the many, many other professionals who work in Rowan, also choose to live in Rowan County and send their children to good public schools here. We’re currently on a path towards economic segregation. If we have subpar free schools and good, costly, private schools, that separates children according family income. Diversity is a big part of education because it’s a big part of life. I think higher income children and lower income children do better when they go to school and learn together — and I’d like to see that be an attractive option for families here. That can’t happen without high quality public schools.

8. Access to affordable housing is a huge problem in our entire country. I have my own ideas and observations, but I don’t have a deep understanding of this complex problem. I know that nothing happens without action, but I would need to address this by listening to experts, learning more about it, and taking actions that are aligned with best practices.