Candidate Questionnaire: Emily S. Chávez, Durham Board of Education, District 1

1. Provide your name as it will appear on the ballot and the specific elected position you seek. 

Name: Emily Susanna Chavez

Position Sought: Durham County Board of Education Member, District 1

2. Briefly describe your involvement with public schools in Durham or elsewhere. What work have you already done that has prepared you for a position on the school board? Why do you believe DAE should support your candidacy? 

I attended K-12 public schools in the suburbs and city of my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. I began my formal study of education as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, a small liberal arts college near Philadelphia. I then came to Durham to complete my Master of Arts in Teaching at Duke University, where I did my teaching internships at Riverside and Jordan High Schools. I have now lived in Durham for nearly 18 years, during which time I have been involved with the Durham Public Schools, as well as other NC schools, in a variety of ways. 

I taught high school for six years, first teaching social studies, and then English language arts. I taught for four years at Hillside High School and for one semester at a dropout recovery program called the Magic Johnson Bridgescape Academy that was part of Durham Performance Learning Center. As an educator I learned about and navigated many systemic social, political, and economic issues that affected my students. I absorbed the reality that as much as I encouraged my students to strive for college, most of my undocumented students would not be able to attend due to legal and financial barriers. I observed the rigid boundaries that guardrail expressions of gender and the insidious enforcement of heteronormative identities, relationships, and practices found in many aspects of school life. I noted the real and haunting threat of the criminal justice system in the lives of students of color, particularly Black boys. As a teacher I sought to support my students, making space for them to fully pursue their academic curiosities and goals while being their authentic selves. 

I have now been an education practitioner for over fifteen years with a unique and diverse background in the field of education. I have taught and advised students from sixth grade through college, coordinated and created professional development for teachers, worked in university student affairs, and served as a DEI elementary and middle independent school administrator. Having worked in public, charter, and private schools, I have been able to observe the practices and cultures in these schools and students’ home communities that shape youths’ access to academic and other types of resources.

Some of the major projects I have collaboratively developed are the African Diaspora Fellows Program, which aimed to increase teachers’ knowledge of African, Afro-Latin American, and African American studies; Learning through Languages, an annual high school world language research symposium; Connecting the Americas, a 10-day study tour to Yucatán, Mexico; and an artist residency featuring Mexico City-based print-maker Sergio Sánchez Santamaría. In all of these projects I have worked with DPS teachers and/or students. I currently work as the Project Director for DREAM, a UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education program created in partnership with DPS to recruit and retain teachers of color and those from underrepresented backgrounds for DPS. 

In addition to these roles, I have served on a number of committees and boards, including Safe Schools NC from 2017-2019, which provides resources to educators to better address the needs of LGBTQ youth and which serves many DPS educators each year. I also served as a member of and co-chaired the Durham Public Schools Budget Process Advisory Committee in 2016-2018, which sought to align budgetary decisions with district priorities, including racial equity. Throughout my career I have held positions that allowed me to directly address social inequities, increase culturally responsive practices, and promote social justice in schools and in the field of education, affecting the lives of many students, families, and educators.

I am now ready to take on the role of school board member, utilizing what I have learned as a teacher, professional development facilitator, education administrator, and organizational change agent. I am a bridge-builder who consistently keeps in mind the experiences, needs, and voices of people, especially those most systemically marginalized, while strategically and collaboratively moving in the direction of our mission and shared vision.

3. What would be your top 3 priorities to achieve in the first year of this next term should you be elected/reelected, and how will you go about doing so?

1. Racial equity: This includes the hiring of teachers of color, particularly Latinx teachers and Black male teachers; ensuring avenues of communication for parents of color, particularly low-income and working class parents; monitoring and increasing BIPOC students’ opportunities for academic and other forms of enrichment. 

2. LGBTQ+ student support: Given the current attacks on LGBTQ+ students and families in other states, it is critical that our district implement policy that protects them. This includes developing policy that sets a standard for our responsibility to gender nonconforming students, LGBTQ+ students, and LGBTQ+ families. 

3. Improving teacher working conditions and wellness: We must build upon and develop plans to ensure adequate staffing, sufficient planning time, additional financial compensation where appropriate and possible, and opportunities for support, mentoring, and professional development.

4. What is DPS doing well?

We have many excellent teachers and administrators, several of whom I have been privileged to work with. While at Hillside, I experienced a strong sense of community with my colleagues, and I have witnessed this sense of collectivity at other schools as well, through school visits as well as anecdotally.

We have a strong Superintendent who is engaged in connecting with multiple stakeholders in Durham and is focused on getting results. Having an effective leader for our district is key, and the board did a thorough and effective job in the hiring of our current Superintendent.

We have a solid strategic plan now guiding our work that was developed through a thoughtful process that involved many Durham community members, including DPS teachers and administrators, parents, organizers, members of the business community, and policymakers.

Overall, DPS has handled the response to COVID well, listening to teachers and parents, collecting input through a variety of mediums, including social media. DPS also required masking beyond state and local mandates and changed the grading scale for final exam testing in 2021 in response to the academic challenges that the pandemic created. Furthermore, DPS partnered with MAKO medical to make COVID testing accessible to students and families.

DPS is also doing a good job at showcasing and highlighting the accomplishments of both students and staff in our district. Our public transparency has increased significantly over the last several years.

5. What could DPS do better?

One major area of concern in DPS right now is teacher retention. This is not an issue unique to Durham, especially right now, two years into the COVID pandemic. However, high teacher turnover was also an issue prior to the pandemic and retention of highly qualified staff is one major area of the DPS strategic plan. Furthermore, the strategic plan speaks to the need for a significant increase in Latinx staff; specifically the goal is for 10% of our educators to be Latinx by 2023. As I currently serve as the Project Director of DREAM, whose purpose is to support this goal by recruiting and retaining teachers from underrepresented backgrounds, I am well acquainted with many of the barriers that exist to reaching this goal. That said, it is an area in which we must continue to strategize. One third of our students are Latinx, yet under 5% of their teachers share that identity.

Additionally, DPS should continue to find ways to engage with all stakeholders, as the system remains hard to navigate for many with less access to technology, parents and caretakers who work non-traditional hours, families who don't speak English, and others. These problems are not specific only to DPS; however, DPS has the opportunity to be the model in creating solutions to these access barriers.

6. What do you see as the two or three most important roles / responsibilities that a school board fulfills?

1. The school board is responsible for listening to the individuals they most directly serve, students and parents/guardians. The school board should create, advocate for, and support avenues by which they and the staff of the district can listen to their constituencies and address concerns at the organizational level where appropriate. The board should also discern what are the most urgent, common, and/or key priorities within the issues raised. 

2. The school board oversees and supports the work of the superintendent, ensuring that the metrics of the strategic plan are being met and if not, asking critical questions to understand what the barriers are in meeting the objectives of the strategic plan and how we can address them.

3. The school board is responsible for the district’s budget and for establishing spending priorities, making sure that these are in line with our mission, values, goals, and vision.

7. To what extent should local policy makers stretch their budgets to fill in the gaps left by inadequate state appropriations?

We have to weigh the gains of such stretching versus the risks. There are times when this ‘stretching’ becomes a necessity because of the outcomes. For example, in 2018, the DPS school board voted to bring custodial workers in-house, rather than contracting with an outside vendor, in order to pay those workers more and provide better benefits. This decision came at a cost of over $1 million to the district, but, it was determined, would yield better results in terms of worker stability and quality of service, in addition to being in line with DPS’ value of equity.  

We should be looking closely at our financial decisions each year to ensure that our dollars are being used wisely and effectively. The philosophy of zero-based budgeting was at the core of the DPS Budget Process Advisory Committee on which I served from 2016-2018. Zero-based budgeting promotes the idea that we justify expenses at the start of each fiscal year, rather than simply carrying over the same expenses from the previous year without assessing their value and how they support mission, values, and current needs of the school system. I advocate that the board utilize this philosophy and practice when possible and appropriate to ground budgetary decision-making.

8. What can we learn from standardized test scores? What can we learn from the School Performance Grades assigned by NC DPI?

Standardized test scores can relay important data about students’ knowledge and gaps in knowledge. However, standardized test outcomes are correlated with race and SES, and thus, we need to keep test scores in mind within a broader context. In addition to quantitative assessments like standardized tests, we should look for qualitative methods to assess our students’ knowledge and skills. We should keep in mind the role of implicit bias in the development of standardized tests which affects students of color and low-income students and seek to address this when we develop alternative assessment methods. 

9. What would you change about the way that educators are currently evaluated by the state and district? (or, what do you like about the current evaluation process?) 

The evaluation instrument as it stands has a lot of potential, but, unfortunately, the process can too often become about checking boxes rather than providing meaningful opportunities for growth. I think the greatest value in the teacher evaluation process is the conversations that guide a teacher’s growth which the process has the potential to facilitate. The measures of the teacher evaluation instrument look at important aspects of being an educator, such as working collaboratively, providing interdisciplinary curriculum, and serving as a leader within the classroom and school. To build on this, I would promote an even more holistic evaluation process that is focused on teacher accomplishments, support, and growth. The evaluation process can become a perfunctory and fairly detached one; however, the real goal of evaluation should be to offer supportive feedback for teachers that recognizes their strengths as well as where and how they can improve their practice. The teacher evaluation process should also include supportive conversations with teachers that provide space for the teacher to share their goals. The evaluation process could also be more portfolio-based, with attention paid to the  artifacts teachers use demonstrating their work, rather than a more quantitative-focused evaluation.

10. What steps do you think DPS should take to better recruit and retain highly qualified Black, Latinx, and other staff of color? What steps should be taken to recruit and retain bilingual staff?

I would like to see DPS continue to partner with local community colleges and universities to support the development of talented teachers of color, including Black and Latinx educators, in obtaining their teaching degree and licensure. Existing programs include NCCU’s LIFT mentoring program and UNC-Chapel Hill’s DREAM program, for which I currently serve as the Project Director. Developing pipelines for instructional assistants, many of whom are Black and Latinx, to become licensed teachers, is critical.

We must also ensure that teachers of color are supported in their schools. PACE, the Partnership for Authentic Communities of Educators, a DPS-UNC collaboration, is one program that can continue to support teachers and especially teachers of color, in their beginning teaching years. PACE offers opportunities for preservice and beginning teachers to meet monthly to discuss problems of practice, as well as conduct supportive peer observations. Over the coming year, PACE will evolve to include more focus on social identity, including race, allowing for more critical conversations and reflections about the experiences of being a teacher of color in DPS. We should also support and sustain affinity groups for BIPOC staff, such as Somos DPS Latinx. Beyond this, we must continue to conduct racial equity trainings for all staff that address microaggressions and implicit bias that Black, Latinx and other teachers of color face.

We should also start talking to bilingual and/or BIPOC high school students now about avenues to return to DPS as teachers, counselors, and social workers, providing information about programs like NC Teaching Fellows, DREAM, and the TEACH Grant Program that will provide them support financially and otherwise. We should convey to our students and staff in big and small ways that we value bilingualism as well as the ability to code-switch.

Lastly, we can explore ways to sponsor visas for potential teachers who are not U.S. citizens or green card holders and also ensure that we are able to hire individuals with DACA.

11. Describe how you believe the Board of Education should evaluate the performance of the Superintendent. Be specific about both qualitative and quantitative factors that you believe are important in evaluating the person charged with leading and managing Durham Public Schools. 

I believe that the Superintendent should be evaluated on the following:

• To what extent they have developed a high functioning organization in which lines of communication are clear, open, and accessible

• To what extent the district has created an equitable school system that actively works to narrow disparities, particularly race- and socioeconomic status-based disparities in academic outcomes, disciplinary practices, and overall student wellbeing

• To what extent tangible progress made on the strategic plan in accordance with the timeline and benchmarks set forth

Quantitative methods to be used include school system-wide data on academic outcomes, disciplinary practices, and overall student wellbeing as well as the benchmark and performance data on the goals of the strategic plan.

Qualitative methods that should be used include a regular performance review conversation between the school board and superintendent and listening sessions with students, parents, teachers and other staff.

12. Describe the best practices you believe DPS should follow to recruit, retain, coach, and evaluate highly qualified school administrators at the school level. Please include specifics about practices and principles that you believe are useful in coaching and evaluating a principal’s (and assistant principal’s) leadership at the school level. How can principals be supported and coached to better support special populations in their schools and promote more inclusive practices?

I believe we should be working to “grow our own” school administrators within the district as well as consider strategic marketing strategies for finding talented school administrators from other NC districts and other states. Programs like the NC Principal Fellows Program support those educators who wish to go into administration by ensuring financial support while also providing an opportunity to take courses and seek principal licensure while part of a supportive cohort.

Mentorship is key for school administrators, as well as opportunities for continuous professional development. Opportunities for principals from across the district to meet regularly and discuss problems of practice as well as best practices they have utilized or seek to implement, are important, particularly for new administrators.

13. Describe the best practices you believe DPS should follow to recruit, retain, and evaluate highly qualified central office personnel. Be specific about both qualitative and quantitative factors that you believe are useful in evaluating the contributions of central office staff.

We can take a “grow our own” approach to the hiring and development of central office staff, in addition to teachers and administrators. We should cultivate the growth of teachers and other certified staff in the district, and allow space for those individuals with interest and expertise to move into roles within central office where and when appropriate. 

It is important to keep up with trends and new skill sets that central office roles necessitate, and to continue to update the requirements and job responsibilities of these roles as needed.

We should also ensure that our job descriptions and standard interview questions include equity-based practices. We should expect that central office staff, as with all DPS staff, have understanding and knowledge of systemic barriers based on race and other aspects of social identity, and that they have developed ways to address these barriers and create equitable access in their respective areas of work.

Annual evaluation processes that involve narrative feedback and allow for goal-setting by central office staff are important to evaluate and support these individuals who work at the organizational level to support the education of all students in Durham.

14. In what ways (if at all) do you believe that institutional racism, homophobia and transphobia, and implicit bias are manifested within Durham Public Schools? What steps do you think DPS should take to better serve Black students, Latinx students, other students of color, and LGBTQ students?

Institutional racism, homophobia, transphobia, and implicit bias exist within and throughout our society and in all institutions in our society, including education, which is why it is important that we confront these issues explicitly and courageously. 

Some of the key steps DPS can take to better serve Black, Latinx, and other students of color, and LGBTQ+ students, are: 

• Hiring more teachers of color, particularly Latinx teachers and Black male teachers, and including LGBTQ+ teachers of color; 

• Ensuring multiple avenues of communication for parents of students of color, particularly low-income and working class parents; 

• Monitoring and increasing BIPOC students’ opportunities for academic and other forms of enrichment; 

• Developing policy that sets a standard for our responsibility to gender nonconforming students, LGBTQ+ students, and LGBTQ+ families;

• Supporting the execution of the collaboratively developed Equity Policy put forth in 2021; and

Continue partnering with local community colleges and universities, including Durham Tech, NCCU, and UNC-CH, and with nonprofits and business partners who can help us to employ these strategies.

15. 2021-22 is the fourth year of the Bull City Community Schools Partnership (www.bccsp.org) at two elementary schools in Durham (Lakewood and Club Blvd). This work represents a partnership between DAE, DPS, Durham County, and the Community Alliance for Public Education. 

a. Provide your assessment of this partnership and of the community school transformation project.

When I first learned about Community Schools, what most intrigued me was the practice of listening to members of the community as a methodical way to inform education practice within the school, and the commitment to providing wraparound services, which often make a significant difference in academic outcomes but are not always centered in conversations about them. I particularly like that it brings together various partners, including Duke University, building on the expertise of many community members and education agents. 

That Community Schools is now a project at Lakewood Elementary, after DAE and others fought back against the State’s attempted takeover of the school, is remarkable and something Durham should be proud of.

b. Do you commit to making the policy and budgeting decisions required to sustain and expand this community school work? Why or why not?

As a board member, I am most likely to make policy and budgetary decisions required to sustain and expand this community work. I would want to ensure that Community Schools continues to meet its objectives. I think Community School is an innovative project that has potential to be a model for other schools. 

16. Assess the impact of charter school expansion on both the Durham community and on DPS.

One critical issue with charter school expansion is that students who begin the school year in a charter school but are then ‘pushed out’ or whose parent(s) choose for them to leave during the school year then become the fiscal responsibility of the local district, in this case, DPS; yet the school district has not received funds to support that child’s education. In this way, charter schools cause a reduction in the amount of funds available to DPS students.

Charter schools can also offer school choice that we need to take into consideration when examining our own offerings within the district. Charter schools are a part of the landscape of education, and we need to think about how we can continue to offer rigorous and diverse academic programming that is desirable to students and parents.

17. EC services are currently underfunded and the retention rate of EC staff is a challenge for the district.

a. What steps would you like to see the administration take in order to ensure the voice of people with disabilities, families of exceptional children, and staff who work under the EC umbrella are represented in the decision-making process?

It is critical that the school board provide avenues for listening to neurodivergent students, students with disabilities, those designated exceptional children, and those who work within the EC departments. Anecdotally, from speaking with parents of school age-children, it seems that more young students are presenting with mental health and behavioral concerns at this time, two full years into the pandemic. Students with learning disabilities have been disportionately underserved as a result of virtual learning, despite the best efforts of educators. I believe it’s critically important to keep the needs of these students front and center in decision-making and as we consider, for instance, summer academic and enrichment programming that may be offered to support students' knowledge base and holistic wellness. EC teachers are at the frontlines of supporting EC students and their families, and thus, we must also continue to develop ways to support our EC staff more rigorously. 

b. What steps would you take to attract and retain more EC staff in both certified and classified areas?

While there is a teacher shortage generally in the nation, the shortage of EC teachers is even greater.

We should continue to engage and partner with programs like the NC Teaching Fellows Program and DREAM to increase avenues for future teachers to become licensed in Special Education. Opportunities for mentorship are critical here, as well as providing adequate time and space for EC teachers to handle their caseloads and, for inclusion teachers, to collaboratively work with classroom teachers to support EC students.

18. Custodians, school nutrition workers, substitutes, and other classified positions, including IAs, are reporting inadequate staffing levels across the district.  What steps would you take to evaluate and address concerns about classified staffing levels? 

I would utilize both quantitative and qualitative data to learn more about the working conditions and push/pull factors, if you will, that discourage or incentivize classified staff to remain in their positions. I think survey data is important to collect, particularly at this time, when the effects of the pandemic are being felt across the labor force of the school district. I also think that having listening sessions with custodians, bus drivers, instructional assistants, and other paraprofessionals is key, offering space for concerns to be raised and addressed. Those staff who support the work of education in these ways are critical to the functioning of the school system, and we should be attentive to their experiences. We should also continue for creative ways to market and attract classified staff, given the shortage, particularly at this time.

19. What is your assessment of the role of organized labor in relation to district leadership and your own leadership as a potential school board member? Please include details about how you will regularly reach out to and engage different members of DPS staff to actively listen and seek their input.

I believe that organized labor is important, as it has allowed for so many rights and improved working conditions to be established, in the field of education and many others. I think workers have a right to organize, and that it is important for labor unions or organizations to have input on key matters within schools and the district at large. 

My desire as a school board member would be to meet regularly with DAE leadership and membership. I also want to recognize that there are many reasons why education staff may not be part of an organized labor force, and I believe it is important to create multiple avenues for school teachers and staff to share their observations, concerns, and feedback. 

20. What are your takeaways from the way that DPS handled COVID over the last two years?

Overall, DPS presented a lot of caution, forethought, and research-based protective measures with regard to dealing with COVID over the last two years. DPS pivoted quickly to online instruction in March 2020. Teachers worked very hard to execute digital learning, often revamping their entire curricula for a virtual space. During the 2020-2021 school year DPS established Wellness Wednesdays to attend to the social and emotional needs of students, and I know that many teachers and school staff worked hard to reach out to students whose attendance was poor or nonexistent during virtual learning. 

I believe the initial decision to keep schools virtual through the end of the 2020-2021 academic year was made preemptively, and when the board elected to pivot to in-person instruction in the spring, following the accessibility of vaccinations, this broke some trust among staff. I do believe the decision to return to some amount of in-person instruction for the remainder of the year was a positive one, particularly for younger students who are in the beginning stages of their social development and typically have less social access than older students. I think, however, there could have been more anticipation of and preparation for this decision earlier in the academic year.

21. Recognizing that it is difficult to be an expert in all things, please let us know who your two or three most trusted advisers or policy experts are when it comes to education policy. What is it about these individuals that leads you to value their judgment?  

The policy experts I look to most are the people around me. I regularly speak with teachers, administrators, parents, students, current school board members, and education scholars. They are my colleagues and coworkers, my friends and neighbors, and I draw from the knowledge of those all around to consider what education policy might be needed and how it can be executed. It is important to me, in creating or developing education programs, such as teacher fellowship programs while at the UNC-Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and now, DREAM, Diverse and Resilient Educators Advised through Mentorship, a UNC-DPS partnership to recruit and retain teachers from underrepresented backgrounds, to consider the unique factors and needs of the community I am tasked to serve while looking to how other universities or schools have developed working models of similar programs. As a DPS school board member I would look forward to connecting with other districts and further developing my knowledge of district-level policy that promotes equity across race, SES, sexual orientation and gender, and improves staff working conditions.