
{"id":14316,"date":"2010-12-02T10:45:23","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T15:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=14316"},"modified":"2010-12-02T11:10:58","modified_gmt":"2010-12-02T16:10:58","slug":"residents-call-for-new-superintendent-to-close-achievement-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/12\/02\/residents-call-for-new-superintendent-to-close-achievement-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents call for new superintendent to close achievement gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nAt a public forum on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools superintendent search on Tuesday, local community leaders and students told school board members they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to see at the helm of the district an accessible superintendent who will work to close the minority achievement gap.<br \/>\nThe board officially launched the search in October when board members voted to hire the N.C. School Board Association as the district\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s superintendent search agency. The move followed Superintendent Neil Pedersen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s July announcement that he would retire next June.<br \/>\nMichelle Laws, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, said that the first priority of the new superintendent should be to work toward closing the minority achievement gap.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I would suggest that we look for someone who genuinely has demonstrated that they care,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, adding that the candidate should be committed to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153face those challenging issues that he or she will no doubt face from day one.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nTed Parrish, a former school board member, said he wants to hear from the new superintendent what he or she will do to deal with the issue of the achievement gap.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why is it that we are in a city with all the resources &#8230; and this chronic problem of the gap is still here?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he asked. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m simply saying we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not doing all we can. We have to do that. We have to be a model for the rest of the state and the nation. So what is going to be done by this new superintendent to arrive at where we should\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been a long time ago?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nA number of high school students spoke at the forum, urging board members to consider candidates who will be accessible to students and teachers.<br \/>\nYoung-Eun Hyun, a senior at East Chapel Hill High School and president of the Chapel Hill Youth Council, said that at the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s youth summit earlier this year students discussed the need for more input on school policy and budget decisions.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We think that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be a really great opportunity if the next superintendent would be willing to communicate a lot &#8230; with the students and be more readily accessible and available for students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 comments and concerns,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<br \/>\nAndrew Dowdy, a senior at East Chapel Hill High and correspondence secretary for the Chapel Hill Youth Council, said he would like to have a superintendent who understands the importance of the high school academies, which are curriculums dedicated to arts, international studies, social justice and technology.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen [the academy] break the achievement gap in certain students. It gives students the opportunity to rise up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time that we have a superintendent that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afraid to break the lines that divide the student body.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nOskar Marzalek, a student at Chapel Hill High School, said he feels lucky to have had opportunities in school to take advanced courses and receive \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the best of what Chapel Hill has to offer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but that all students should have similar access.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very grateful that I have had them, but I think that they can be used very effectively, given the staff that we have and the resources that we do have,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A superintendent should be able to harness what we already have and do more with that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nBoard members have said they would like to appoint a new superintendent by April.<br \/>\nThe board will hold another public forum on the superintendent search on Dec. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m. at East Chapel Hill High School.<br \/>\nThe public may also submit input regarding the search through a community survey, available online at surveymonkey.com\/s\/Y9MTLJZ. Paper copies of the survey are available in all school offices and public libraries and at various community centers. For more information, visit the superintendent search website under the Quick Links section at chccs.k12.nc.us<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Local community leaders and students told school board members they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to see at the helm of the district an accessible superintendent who will work to close the minority achievement gap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-schools","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14316"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14321,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14316\/revisions\/14321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}