Durham Public Schools Board of Education, District B: Millicent Rogers

Name as it appears on the ballot: Millicent Rogers 

Age: 39 

Party affiliation: Democrat 

Campaign website: https://www.millicent4dps.com/ 

Occupation and employer: Sales Representative, Oxford University Press 

Years lived in the area: All my life. 

1. What are the three main issues that you believe the Durham Public Schools Board of Education needs to address in the upcoming years? 

I believe the top 3 priorities for Durham Public Schools should include fostering deeper and more impactful school and family relationships, improve school culture for students and staff, and an improved focus on staff retention and recruitment efforts. 

2. Durham Public Schools has had a hard time recruiting and retaining teachers and staff members recently and it has been suggested that some classified staff not be compensated for years of professional experience outside of the district in their pay steps. Do you agree with this approach? How can the district work with the county to recruit and retain teachers and staff and make sure they are compensated adequately and competitively? 

Recruitment and retention is not just a DPS issue; there is a nationwide shortage of educators. In North Carolina, the national crisis is amplified by the consistent underfunding of public schools. In order to overcome these funding gaps, the Durham Board of Eduction and the Durham Board of County Commissioners need to work with our statewide counterparts to collectively demand full implementation of the Leandro Plan. 

In Durham County, we need to ensure that certified supplements that are provided through local funding are increasing incrementally and proportionally to the cost of living in Durham. Doing so could have a significant impact on if Durham educators can live and thrive in Durham. 

Recently, our district has struggled with ensuring that classified staff are properly compensated for their labor in Durham Public Schools. As a board member, I am cognizant that the way compensation is calculated for classified employees is an administrative decision and not a policy or governance choice. I see our community rallying and requesting that the board take this on as a matter of policy because the policy is the mechanism in place to provide guidelines for administration to follow. In Durham, it is unpopular that classified staff would lose access to their years of private experience that they bring to their work, and I agree they should keep it. The best thing that DPS can do is work with the County to ensure our classified staff are paid on similar pay schedules as county employees and that they consistently get similar pay increases. In Durham, we are lucky that people can come with so much relevant experience from the private sector, and our employees should benefit as much as the district and the county at large does. I also recognize that as I serve Durham, I have just one vote and my single vote on any policy is not enough to implement a policy or direct administration to take a particular action. 

3. Durham Public Schools is committed to equity in education, but disparities between white students and students of color, particularly with regard to the use of suspension and other disciplinary measures, persist. How should the school board work to address these and other equity issues? 

During the last few months of my tenure, I have worked to champion the Black and Hispanic Student Achievement Plan. One of the major challenges facing students of color in Durham Public Schools is that there is no evidence that the programs used to support our students are evaluated for effectiveness. This last May, I brought to the superintendent a proposed resolution to bring transparency to the strategies the district has activated to improve reading and math proficency. What grew out of this document was eventually adopted by the board in August 2023. I look forward to continued collaboration with my colleagues and DPS administration as the Black and Hispanic Student Achievement Plan grows out of this resolution. The plan should help us evaluate all practices, both academic and disciplinary. 

As we move forward, this plan can guide our investments and ensure that our students are getting the resources that they need to be successful. Similarly, when initiatives and programs are not working, the plan will monitor that as well and prompt us to move in a different direction. 

4. The new ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’ law seeks to give parents more control over their children’s education. How should DPS balance compliance with the law with students’ rights to privacy and teachers’ ability to provide a sound basic education? 

I am proud of the way the current Board of Education worked together to protect our youth amidst the passage of hateful legislation from the extremist right wing. Ultimately, our revised LGBTQIA+ policy strikes a difficult balance between following the law and protecting our youth as much as possible. Additionally, while some believed modifying the policy was inappropriate, I know that giving our staff clear guidance in difficult situations is the work of the Board, and I believe not revising the policy to reflect the new law would have left our students and staff open to accusations and a revised policy protects us all. 

5. Does the General Assembly have a constitutional obligation to comply with the state Supreme Court order in the Leandro case to fully fund public schools and give every child in North Carolina a sound basic education? What other policies should lawmakers enact at the state level to strengthen public education? 

Yes, the general assembly needs to step up and fulfill their obligation to provide sound and basic education to all North Carolina students. Lawmakers should eliminate charter schools and if they can’t do that, they should ensure that they have to meet the same standards as traditional public schools. I’d like to see North Carolina moving charters to report their growth, test scores and financial well being to the local school districts that disperse funding to them, the General Assembly should also ensure that these schools are seeking approval from local school districts to develop new charter schools within their jurisdiction. Sometimes, charters are developed as an alternative the local public school system and those systems could have an opportunity to address their deficinencies if they know why a Charter is targeting their area. 

The voucher bills also just need to disappear, if the state can invest that much money in education then that investment should be into public schools. 

6. Do you support the recommendations of the Durham Safety and Wellness Task force to increase restorative justice practices and expand Durham’s HEART program into schools? Why or why not? What role should SROs have in Durham schools? 

Restorative practices, while part of our schools district’s expectations, have not yet been executed with fidelity across the distrct. I appreciate the perspective of the Community Safety and Wellness Task Force that restorative practices are not a one and done checklist item, but a constant practice we have to choose to invest in. To that end, our schools and educators need continued investment in training, support, and space, to ensure that restorative practices are, in fact, restorative. We can support these efforts by implementing a renewed commitment to restorative practices by setting schools up for success with a RPC implementation program similar to this check list used in Milwaukee Public School System. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nxL3alduY_gA_PqMJWwvahYaj5Uo_DIkUeyzq85V2U4/e dit?usp=sharing 

Additionally, I am very interested in expanding our current HEART program into schools or, alternatively, reinventing a school-based HEART program. The reality is that school personnel are just not well-equipped to address the mental health crises some of our students are experiencing and their skills and expertise are best used otherwise. Having a dedicated crisis-response team (or even multiple) can allow our school-based counselors and social workers to work more in prevention and serve all of our students better. 

7. Despite voters passing a $423.5 million education bond in 2022 to build new schools and renovate existing facilities, that money is running out fast due to rising construction costs. Do you think county leaders should put another education bond before voters soon? What is the most sustainable way to address new construction and renovations of existing facilities as Durham continues to grow? 

Yes, given the historic underfunding if public school systems by the state, difficulty in attaining local funding to invest in our capital needs over generations, the rising cost of construction costs, and our community’s desire to move toward more green infrastructure, I would love to see a new school bond initiative on the ballot as soon as possible. I would be most interested in partnering with the county for a Green bond for all county facilities including schools. 

The most sustainable way to address new construction and renovations as Durham continues to grow is to ensure that bonds are on a schedule that allows for capital investments to happen on a regular schedule, I believe very strongly and say it often: “Schools should be gateways to the future for students.” In order for this to be reality, we must continuously invest in the buildings that educators are working in and students are learning in. 

8. Durham School of the Arts is planned to relocate to a new facility in North Durham by 2026, but some in the community say the school should remain downtown. They argue the downtown campus would continue to serve students in the central part of Durham and it would be more cost-effective to renovate the existing building rather than spending a large portion of bond funds on a new facility for a school that serves some of Durham’s more affluent students. What are your thoughts on this issue? 

If you’re in favor of DSA relocating, how would you propose repurposing the current DSA campus? I trust the decisions that each iteration of the Board of Education has made on whether or not to invest more tax payer dollars into the current DSA campus. As a Durham School of the Arts Alumna, I appreciate all the efforts that have been invested in the historic downtown location. I also recognize that there are times when buildings age beyond repair and renovation. I support a new build of DSA, as indicated by affirmative votes for the project as it moves forward. I am open to the many possibilities of seeing the current DSA location continued to be used for educational purposes and being some sort of arts and information hub for Durham Public Schools and Durham as a community. 

9. How should schools ensure that high school students are prepared for two- or four-year college or are career-ready and have the skills to take advantage of new economic opportunities coming to Durham upon graduation? 

All students should graduate prepared to enter a two-year, four-year colleague or be career ready upon graduation, we aren’t doing that well yet. In order to pivot in order to reach that goal, our schools must do a better job of counseling our students from a younger age about what options are available to them and how to pursue those pathways. The “Showcase of Schools” is a great first step, but communication around this event must be more robust, especially in terms of CTE pathways. Additionally, many students, most especially Black and brown students, are being tracked out of college and career readiness before high school even begins by unclear communication around taking Math I in middle school and the potential impact that will have as they transition to high school. 

In terms of the role of post-secondary education, I believe DPS needs to be doing more to bring these opportunities into our high schools. DPS has a unique opportunity to pursue federal funding in relation to green job training and partner with local businesses to ensure our youth have the work experience and education necessary for our future economy. DPS needs to bring post-secondary opportunities into our high schools as much as possible through college credit, certification programs, internships, etc. Each high school should have a community partner that can help them develop these goals and work with students to achieve them, we need to do a better job of leveraging private-public partnerships in ways that have the most impact on our students. 

10. How should DPS address mental health and wellness for students, educators, and staff coming out of the pandemic years? 

I first have to acknowledge that SB49 has made this more difficult for current students and families to seek mental health support via the Durham Public Schools resources. The district has an opportunity during the annual registration period to offer resources to families about who to connect with in community partnership. Monitoring and supporting the mental health of students is demonstrative of our efforts to ensure that our work to educate students is trauma-informed. There is a long history of educational trauma that requires a holistic approach to the ways that DPS interacts with families to support addressing the mental health of students. DPS has a duty to provide a sound basic education, and that begins with meeting families where they are, including supporting the mental health resources that our families need. 

For educators and DPS staff members we give access to Employee support services and the district should be implementing the use of the Compassion Resilience Toolkit for Schools to help educators rejuvenate themselves throughout the year. This toolkit has helped educators find a better work-life balance across the country. It has provided an increased awareness of their biases and given them more capacity to meet students and families where they are. 

Every school in our district deserves to have an educator community that is able break through the barriers of trauma and use their acquired skillset to demonstrate a better understanding of how all members of a school community that identify as LGBTQIA+, Black, Latinx, or members of other marginalized communities deserve access to an inclusive and culturally responsive education.

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