Full name: Riza Jenkins
Party affiliation: Democrat
Campaign website: www.rizajenkins.com
1) In 300 words or less, please give our readers your elevator pitch: Why are you running? Why should voters entrust you with this position? What prior experience will make you an effective member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board of education?
I am running to continue the work for our students, staff, and community. I have remained committed to ensuring all students have the tools and opportunities they need regardless of the pathway or plan they choose to pursue in life. I also support our staff through advocating for professional development and compensation to support them in their professional careers. I believe my experience as a single mother of three children who have been in our schools since Pre-K, my volunteer service throughout the community both in and out of our schools, and also my professional experience spanning over 20 years in a variety of roles provides me with a variety of perspectives on how to approach many of the board decisions.
2) What would your priorities be as a member of the CHCCS board? Please identify three of the most pressing issues the district currently faces and how you believe the board should address them.
To implement a fiscal strategy that aligns our instructional programming with our students’ needs that supports educational excellence and financial sustainability;
To ensure safe and updated facilities for our students to learn and our staff to work;
To support staff with professional development that they need and aligns with our strategic and school improvement plans and to provide staff with the compensation they deserve as professionals.
The board should address our financial and programmatic strategy by doing an assessment of all programs and initiatives across the district. This will involve the students, staff, and community’s support and input for the board to consider. This work will begin during this school year and will align with some of the other efforts in the district to address its funding challenges.
When it comes to the facilities, much of that work has begun with the approval of the $300million school facilities bond.
We will need to remain committed to professional development for all staff that aligns with our strategic plan, student outcome, and staff development goals. Also, as we are looking at our fiscal strategy, we must continue to ensure we are providing competitive salaries and benefits to our staff.
3) What’s the best or most important thing the CHCCS board has done in the past year? Additionally, name a decision you believe the board should have handled differently. Please explain your answers.
The most important thing the board has done was implement the three-phase approach to address the budget challenges we have been experiencing. It was a difficult and necessary decision to ensure more radical decisions and cuts were not made later due.
This was also the same decision that the board could have done differently. I have been on the board for 4 years and there were indicators that we needed to address the looming financial situation. Unfortunately, staff, community, and even some board members were not willing to make the reductions because that work was uncomfortable and difficult.
The reality is the board will make difficult decisions and we must be able to do it for our students, staff, and community. The other side is that our students, staff, and community must also understand we are making decisions in the best interests of our schools, students, and staff, which may not always feel or seem like it.
4) President Trump is working to ramp up deportations and curtail visas. At the same time, the state legislature has passed laws requiring agencies to cooperate with ICE. How can CHCCS support families who may be at risk? And what can the school board do to make sure CHCCS schools are safe for kids in light of these policies?
CHCCS has implemented training for staff within our district regarding students/family rights and what access is and is not permissible for law enforcement on our school property. Staff throughout our district have supported families with any social, emotional, and financial support and will continue to do so during these difficult times.
5) The school board has, over several years, spent down its fund balance, introduced a reduction in force, and declined to renew some teacher contracts. With an expected decrease in enrollment—and uncertainty in federal funding—how would you address the district’s financial issues?
Our financial challenges are due to budgeting on a single year basis. In order to have a strategic view of our district we need to manage our finances by looking at it from a multi-year perspective. We can use some of the data we use to make determination on programmatic, curriculum, and operational investments if we look at our finances year over year to understand the long term impact of a decision and also the timing to make any adjustments to our programs or initiatives.
6) Should the board move to close an elementary school due to falling enrollment? What other ideas do you have to help CHCCS maintain excellence while receiving less money?
We should close at least one possibly two elementary schools for a variety of reasons, one of the reasons is due to declining enrollment. We need to complete a review of our programs and initiatives for our students and staff to determine if it is yielding the academic return on investment. There may be programs that we decided to expand or some that we may strategically phase down, but we have numerous programs and initiatives that rival in quality larger districts than ours.
7) The Orange County Board of Commissioners did not meet the CHCCS board’s continuation budget request, even after an increase in the CHCCS special district tax. How can the board best work with the county commission to ensure that CHCCS gets enough money in the future?
The board needs to continue to bring the County Commissioners along this journey of understanding the funding needs of the district, the long term impact of schools, and the impact the outcomes for students on the community. We hold collaborative meetings with the various boards’ leadership, both staff and elected officials, and joint board meetings. We will continue to invite the Commissioners into our schools, so they understand the work happening everyday which takes time and funding to get it done by all of our staff.
8) It takes about two minutes to get a free AI chatbot to write a book report, respond to an essay question, or generate a slide deck for a presentation. Regardless of classroom or district policies, students are using AI to complete assignments. How can the CHCCS board best support teachers who are trying to make sure that students are still learning the basics and thinking critically?
The district completed a curriculum and instruction audit a few years ago, which provided guidance on how to improve our instructional practices and has paved the way to have a written curriculum for all of our courses in the district. This effort will go a long way to ensure the staff have the tools and guidance to ensure students are learning in a variety of ways, which includes hands-on practical experience doing the work or experiments. Also, the district has bolstered its professional development to ensure staff are equipped with the tools they need in the ever changing world, which includes how to educate students.
9)If there are other issues you want to discuss, please do so here.
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