New Hanover County School Board
Margie Gewirtzman, Democratic challenger
Career: Acupuncturist
Education: Masters in Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Human Physiology, BS
Q: Why should voters support you to represent them on the New Hanover County Board of Education?
A: For 18 years I have been a fierce advocate for my three children — all of whom have learning barriers — at public education schooling in New York, Texas and now here in Wilmington. I understand the issues and the challenges faced by parents and staff as they navigate constraints in the school system to provide the best learning environments for our kids and am prepared to be that advocate for ALL children. I also have extensive experience working in a variety of non-profits and understand how to budget effectively to achieve specific goals. If our Board fails to find solutions to the many challenges facing NHC schools today, it is our students that will pay the price tomorrow.
Q: Name one top policy change you want to see and how you will get that passed.
A: My top policy change would be to roll-back the hurtful and culturally divisive policy instituted by the Board two years ago which banned any flags or pictures in classrooms or the hallways of our schools. We were told this was done because it was a distraction to our students from learning. It is not and never has been. This policy should be done away with immediately. Another policy change we can pass very quickly is about transparency to our community: let’s institute a change to Board meetings to make those meetings more convenient and accessible to our parent and educator community, not just to our Board members. Childcare coverage, enough time to transition from jobs to the meeting in our ever increasing city traffic and even having a translator present for spanish speakers as potential areas to lower existing barriers to attend meetings.
Q: The current school board and district staff have been clear about the shortcomings in the state’s funding model and the limitations of county funding. What new solution or approach would you bring to the table?
A: It’s clear that the current funding model is outdated and needs to be revamped if we want to see an equitable solution to our public education crisis. The state needs to be responsible for what was originally set out in the model - salaries and other operational matters. This has slowly degraded over time and the County has had to pick up the slack, which has squeezed their ability to pay for their side of the ledger. The longer we allow this to go on, the more we are cheating our children, and hard-working teachers and staff. My new approach would be to work collaboratively with school boards all across the state to more effectively lobby and advocate the NCGA to 1) stop siphoning public school monies to pay for private school vouchers for families that can afford it; 2) ensure that more money from the education lottery is put into schools, which was the original idea behind the initiative; and 3) call out to the greater New Hanover County private, public and non-profit communities to help fund the gap between what the state and the County Commission will finance, and what truly needs to be invested annually for a safe comprehensive and enriching education for our children. This includes fully staffed janitorial staff, maintenance crews, arts programs and all the teaching assistants and counselors that have been cut over the past several years.
Q: Superintendent Chris Barnes has been authorized to put together a 10-year sustainability plan in March, which could highlight where the district can close school facilities and reduce costs associated with its current overhead. Do you support this effort and if so, how would you like the district to proceed with this study and its implementation?
A: I think the district is due for an overarching study of where our population and demographics lie with relation to our schools. That should guide a thorough and thoughtful process to evaluate whether we can indeed close some facilities in order to strengthen others. I want the emphasis in the study to look at our populations and neighborhoods and work across government bodies, non-profit agencies, and our local businesses to create a strategic investment into all of our neighborhoods in the most equitable and sensitive way to make our public schools a truly viable choice for every family in NHC.
Q: The district is also looking to obtain grant funding for a study on how much time students spend with screens in class. Where do you stand on student technology use, particularly screen time and AI in classrooms?
A: I think it’s a good idea to have a study on screen time in classrooms. The difficult balance is that technology has lowered barriers to the curriculum for those with learning disabilities both known and unknown, such as vision deficits or hearing deficits. But I can’t ignore how it’s become a teaching and learning crutch — and be manipulated by students to bypass thinking and just copy/paste answers. As our community of educators builds improved and thoughtful use of technology in our classrooms, we also need to set sensible limits and guardrails on these emerging systems in order to keep our kids learning at their highest potential. In short, whatever technological means and resources we can provide to students — balanced with the right protections - to prepare them for their post-school career, remains a critical part of the educational mix.
Q: Is there a capital need that you would have liked to see make it onto the school bond? How would you work to fund that project in the future?
A: The first thing we must all do is support the school bond referendum on this year's ballot! Although it's only 60% of the total amount needed to fix our schools as well as to fully address the need for additional schools to support our growing population, it is a significant first step in the process. Part of supporting the mental health of our students is having strong arts programs and athletic programs in our schools. All of our schools’ instruments, music and art rooms and athletic equipment and facilities are woefully outdated and undersized for our current population. I would look to our private and non-profit community to help raise the funds needed for these much needed updates. Our students can not wait an additional 10 years for these areas to be addressed by a future bond.
Q: The state recently mandated a specific process for handling book challenges. It requires the school board to weigh in on all challenges, supplanting the district’s multi-layered challenge and appeal process. However, the state doesn’t specify if the board has to remove the book from all schools or grade levels, versus just the school where the book was challenged. Should a parent challenge at one school trigger a district-wide review, or should the concerns stay local? Why?
A: The 11-member Community Media Advisory Committee is mandated to be composed of 3 principals, 3 teachers, 3 school library media coordinators, and 2 parents. It shifts the burden of review from individual schools to this county wide committee. The Committee will give its recommendations to the board, which will vote on it at the next regular board meeting.
I disagree with this new process. I believe a multi-layered approach works to the benefit of the process, especially since it is usually fraught with emotion and at times mis-information. In addition, I don’t believe one adult should have the power to sway the Board to decide that a particular book should be taken out of the schools, as happened in NHC with “Stamped.” If a parent at one school has a challenge (particularly after they have worked with the teacher and principal and are still not satisfied with the outcome), then that challenge should be fenced in for just the one school where the parent’s child attends. I worry that this movement towards centralized policies lay the groundwork for statewide issuing of book bans, losing local autonomy and political weaponization of our public school education.
Q: If you had to redistrict as a board member, how would you go about that process?
A: We will likely have the opportunity on the newly-elected Board to look at redistricting as an option if the Bond passes. Full transparency, conversations with families, and input from educators and other community stakeholders will be needed to shape the factors that determine the strategy which will best serve every student. This should include, for example, limiting disruption of lives by phasing this policy in during the transition years — kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade — and then letting those years feed upward. Transportation burdens and any other barriers inherent in the system faced by families should also be a legitimate consideration.
Q: What do you think The Endowment should fund for schools?
A: I see the Endowment possibly funding the first three years of a non-profit-led initiative to support enrichment programs in our schools. We need community partnerships with NHCS to help fund and support after school enrichment programs (such as arts, sports and other kinds of clubs) during the initial “building years” of this new program. This partnership could also extend to providing much needed mental health support, academic tutoring and career mentorship to our struggling students. In addition, these partnerships could also help train and set up community based PTA programs for those schools who don’t have one or are struggling to form one. Our schools need partnerships that are capable of organizing and training community members to find and apply for grants locally and nationally to bring in new funds for the betterment of our staff and students. These community partnerships can also help advise on raising the funds in a sustainable way that will ensure higher quality vocational training, art showcasing, academic competition hosting and academic conferences. And finally, we should consider wrap-around community investments that would make accessible health and wellness programs for our students’ families and communities.
Q: What should be done to improve the district’s five low-performing schools? Why does New Hanover County have some of the highest performing schools in the state – and then some of the lowest performing ones in North Carolina?
A: We need to desperately work on increasing teacher hiring and retention, and not all of that comes down to money. Teachers need to feel like they are supported and heard, and much of that can come through policies as well as just the general environment and culture within the school system. We need to come up with other creative solutions like the Bond, to fund critical maintenance for our crumbling schools, many of which are in the lower economic strata of the County. We know that various Federal and state funding sources have either been eliminated or failed to keep up with our students’ needs creating understaffed learning environments, particularly in those lower performing schools. And we know that the communities surrounding those schools need help, so it needs to be a more holistic approach together with the NHC Commission and the Wilmington City Council to improve things throughout. We know that a lot of what we are seeing in the gap between our high performing and low performing schools is baked into the history of NHC - segregation; an explicit neglect of the poorer, blacker neighborhoods; and a Sophie’s Choice by NHCS of where to place scarce resources in order to have the biggest impact. In addition, 16 of our 45 NHC schools are Title 1, and with that comes increased emotional burdens on teachers, demonstrating the criticality of mental health services to support everyone in our school system, but in particular those students and staff in lower-ranked schools.