Progressive Caucus of the NC Democratic Party Candidate Questionnaire: Emily S. Chávez, Durham Board of Education, District 1

Tell us about this race? Which district are you running in? Is there a primary? Is it a partisan race? How many candidates are running for this seat? *

Durham Public Schools Board of Education election is a non-partisan race and as such, there is no primary. May 17, 2022 is election day for candidates running for School Board. The BOE consists of 7 members. One elected at-large, four are elected from specific districts, and two are elected from consolidated districts. I am running for the District 1 seat and opposing two other candidates, neither of whom are incumbents.

Do you consider yourself politically Progressive? Describe your political philosophy. 

I consider myself politically progressive, and I have been all my life. Raised in a progressive household, I became active in social and political work as a teenager. A registered independent, I have always voted for Democrats. I believe that government should be representative of the people in an equitable and fair way. I believe that people across racially, economically, culturally, and linguistically diverse communities should have their voices and concerns heard through democratic processes. The government and its various programs, funded by the people, should allow for the basic needs of residents to be met; these include access to housing, food, healthcare, and education.

Why do you want the endorsement or other support of the Progressive Caucus of the NCDP?

The values and concerns of the Progressive Caucus of the NCDP are ones that align with my own. I have a long track record of working toward equity and social justice in education, as well as advocating for issues such as immigration reform, criminal justice reform, and gender equality with attention to race and class. I believe in supporting and strengthening our public education system and making it accessible for all children. As a long-time education professional with experience building partnerships and managing budgets, I have the expertise, relationship-building skills, and strategic approach necessary to making lasting change for Durham’s schools and students.

Why are you running for a board of education position? What makes you the best candidate? What skills and strengths will you bring to the table? Also, please list, with dates, any prior elected positions, or candidacies. Are you the incumbent for this position?

I have over 15 years of experience in the field of education. I taught high school for six years, including four years at Hillside High School and one semester at the Durham Performance Learning Center, both schools in District 1. As an educator I learned about and navigated many systemic social, political, and economic issues that affected my students. 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 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.

I am a bridge-builder. Real and meaningful collaboration is important to me in making change in education. This requires listening. It requires effective communication and emotional intelligence. In leading or participating in groups, I try to bring out the expertise of each individual. I also try to facilitate individuals’ being able to listen to one another. 

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 for elementary teachers to Yucatán, Mexico; and an artist residency that engaged high school, community college and college students in Durham 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. 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 bring data analysis abilities to the board. I look at quantitative and qualitative data to develop recommendations and make informed decisions. I want our decisions as a board to be strategic in nature, research-based, and aligned with our values.

What are your top three policy priorities? Why are they important? What are your plans for these priorities?

1) Racial equity: This includes addressing the disparate academic outcomes for students of color; 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.

These three issues are both timely and foundational to the success of our district in meeting its mission to embrace, educate, and empower every student to innovate, serve, and lead. We must address disparities that negatively affect Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+ students, groups which are overlapping and not mutually exclusive, and to support the educators who are on the frontlines of educating, supporting, and mentoring our students.

Children of color and children living in poverty often face greater obstacles with learning and socialization. What would you do to make our schools more welcoming, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of all children?

Some of the key steps I would work toward include:

• 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.

We know that our students have faltered during the pandemic. What are the top two policies would you support to overcome this gap?

1) I would advocate for more counselors and social workers in schools, including bilingual professionals, and more mental health resources for students.

The COVID pandemic has highlighted the significant role schools play in intervening in economic disparities, which fall along racial lines. Without the physical school as a resource for DPS students during the first year and a half of the pandemic, many students suffered from isolation and anxiety. Even with the best virtual learning lessons and classrooms, it proved difficult to provide extra academic support to all the students who needed it. 

 Additionally, the lack of extracurricular activities prohibited many students from developing non-academic interests and skills. These are issues that have affected students of all identities and backgrounds.We must continue to support our students’ mental health needs.

2) 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.

Are there School Resource Officers in your school district? What is your opinion of SRO programs?

There are School Resource Officers in Durham Public Schools. At this time, I would advocate for reforming SRO’s in schools. SRO’s have considerable support in Durham, and I would want to ensure that various stakeholders are moving in concert toward a new model of protection for students in Durham, if that is what, as a community, we desire. At present, reforms that could be taken include increased racial and implicit bias training; more specialized education on child and adolescent development; an MOU between the police department and the school system that gives more structure to the responsibilities and limitations of the SRO role; and implementation of a system for gathering regular and consistent feedback from students, parents, and teachers regarding SRO performance. Beyond this, I am in favor of investigating possibilities for new systems of protection of students and staff that are not rooted in policing. There is a relationship between the presence of SRO’s in schools and students being referred to law enforcement, particularly Black students (Terrell and Smith, 2021), and this warrants us closely considering what methods of protection would be most effective for all students. 

Tell us about how you are funding your campaign. What portion of your contributions are from PACs, large donors vs small donors? If you could change the rules on campaign financing, what would that look like?

At present, we are funding our campaign via individual financial contributions and in-kind donations. We are still in the early stages of fundraising and anticipate that the majority of donations will come from smaller individual donors. I support changes in campaign financing that increase the racial and economic diversity of a candidate pool, such as a publicly funded small donation match program. I also support regulations on corporate contributions that have the potential to sway political interests.