For the third time, retired educator Emma Saunders is running as a Democrat for New Hanover County’s Board of Education. Her primary goals are to increase access to preschool and work with the J.C. Roe Suspension Center to give at-risk students a second chance.
Most of the students who are sent to J.C. Roe are African American and from a lower socioeconomic background. That’s according to Emma Saunders, who says it is the responsibility of the Board of Education to reach out to these children, and she thinks the new career and technical education high school could help train them for future success:
"I think we need to get to J.C. Roe and give them the opportunity to have those job skills when they finish high school. They need to have the diploma, but I think that’s where the job skills are most important."
Saunders also wants to increase access to preschool. She says a lot of issues, such as illiteracy and drop out rates, would be remedied by focusing on early childhood education. In her words, you wouldn’t plant a tree and then wait five years to start attending to it.