Orange County Schools Board of Education: Anne Purcell

Name: Anne Purcell

Age: 72

Party affiliation: Democrat

Campaign website: annepurcellforschoolboard.com

Occupation and employer: Retired school administrator

1. What is your past or current involvement with Orange County Schools? What makes you qualified for this job?

I have held every school position that serves our students, from teacher assistant to principal. I have been a classroom teacher, an assistant principal, the Director of Student Services, and I spent 10 years as the principal of C.W. Stanford Middle School (now Orange Middle School). I have also served as the Interim Principal at Orange High School I know our schools inside and out, from the classroom to the central office.

2. What are the three main issues that you believe the board of education needs to address in the upcoming year?

1) Academic Achievement – Students must graduate from high school prepared to achieve their future goals, regardless of whether those goals involve careers, college, or other pursuits. For the first time all 13 schools in our district met or exceeded growth, or both, for the 2024-2025 school year. I am committed to continuing support for the work and resources that made this success possible.
2) Teacher and Administrator Support – We need to show our strong support by continuing to advocate for salaries that reflect the importance of their work and by providing relevant professional development, timely access to instructional data, and adequate classroom resources.
3) School Safety – Provide the resources to establish and maintain secure facilities, training staff in building supervision and response, continue providing funding for mental health support in our schools, and continuing our partnership with the OC Sheriff’s Dept. to provide School Resource Officers in each of our schools.

3. For incumbents, what has been your greatest accomplishment on the board? For newcomers, what change would you bring to the board?

For the past three years there has been a continuous focus on my number one priority, Academic Achievement. Because of this strong focus on academics OCS End of Grade and End of Year testing data have shown significant growth and increased proficiency. Our scores are the highest that they have been in many years and all our subgroups showed either growth or proficiency, or both this past year. Our school’s letter grades from DPI have also improved as have our graduation rates. Concurrently with this success, our system has implemented Data-Driven decision making in our classrooms, using student performance data to help teachers target their instruction to better meet the individual needs of their students. Teachers review data with their students to set personal goals for achievement – and share these goals with parents to involve them in a circle of support for the student.

I am very proud of the work and focus we have seen on the use of data to drive instruction. Our teachers and Curriculum Dept. have worked with focus and intent to implement how to best use the data for continuous growth and learning. This work helps students excel and understand what they need to concentrate on to improve and set goals to get there.

4. Nearly every public school district in the state saw a decrease in enrollment this year. With kids leaving for charter and private schools, what can OCS do to convince parents that this is the best option for their students?

One thing that comes to mind immediately – we need to do a better job of publicizing our many successes. OCS has seen dramatic improvement in testing performance over the last two school years. As we continue our progress, we need to make certain that the community knows that OCS students are thriving in safe, welcoming learning environments. In addition, we need to tout the many opportunities and services that we offer that many smaller schools simply cannot provide, i.e. student support services, EC services, after-school care, transportation, meals, athletics, arts, music, career and technical education, extracurricular clubs, etc.- all of this in addition to our excellent OCS teaching staff. It is noteworthy that we have seen a number of students returning to our school system for middle and high school for this very reason.

5. What’s the best or most important thing the OCS board has done in the past year? Additionally, name a decision you believe the board should have handled differently. Please explain your answers.

Our board has worked hard this past year with our superintendent and Chief Financial Officer to develop a working budget that meets the needs of the district and allows us to add money to our Fund Balance. There is no question that money is tight for everyone, and school systems are no exception. The BOCC was unable to fully fund our continuation budget this past year by a little over $200,000.00 and as everyone is aware, our state government still does not have a budget for this fiscal year that began this past July. We are operating off the same amount that was allotted last year. Dr. Jones and her team looked at purchases of curriculum, both electronic and nonelectronic, and with teacher help, determined that some did not meet the needs of students and did not need to be renewed. That resulted in a savings of $700,000.00 which was added to our Fund Balance. It is our hope that next fiscal year will be better and the state will pass a budget (as it should) by July 1. Until then we will continue to be mindful of spending and make sure that our citizens’ money is spent wisely and focused on giving our students the best possible education and extracurricular opportunities. 

I think that we should not have started the redistricting process so early, even before we knew whether the school bond had been passed by county voters. The timing of that effort was far ahead of both funding and locating the new school. Unfortunately, this caused a lot of unnecessary frustration and angst for parents and the community.

6. With state and federal funding declining, the Orange County Board of Commissioners fell short in 2025 of funding the district’s continuation request. OCS is committed to equity in education, but the “achievement gap” between white students and students of color persists. How can the district better fulfill its most basic mission of educating every child?

I feel that the continuous focus on improving academics is increasingly better for our students. While there are other measures beyond test scores of how well we meet student needs, it is noteworthy that for the past two years our End of Grade and End of Year testing data have shown significant growth for our schools. In fact, last year’s scores were the highest they been in many years and all of our student sub-groups showed growth or proficiency, or both, with our minority students scoring higher than all others. Our graduation rate has also increased during this same time. While all of these are positive indicators, they do not represent an end point in serving students. Rather they are points alongside our efforts to continue to improve our educational delivery and other services to students – and we are committed to doing just that.

While the gap between students of different demographics has closed somewhat over the last two years, we must continue to focus our efforts on this issue. Even as students enter kindergarten, we see gaps in preparedness that are a result of multiple factors – lack of resources, parents often working two jobs, or perhaps non-English speaking households, etc. It is our job to identify and address these gaps very early in the student’s education – whether it involves knowing letters/numbers in elementary school or reading English assignments later on. These are two examples of where our use of student data (mentioned above) can help teachers zero in on deficits of knowledge and focus on student’s instruction where it is most needed, resulting in better success for that student.

7. North Carolina recently received an “F” grade from the Education Law Center, which reported that the state is second to last in average funding per student. As of January 2025, the state legislature hasn’t passed a budget, leaving educators without a cost-of-living adjustment. What can the OCS board do to help student outcomes with a state government that seems uninterested in supporting public schools?

Orange County is very fortunate to have a Board of County Commissioners who believe in funding Orange County Schools. This is their top priority, and we get a large portion of taxpayer dollars for education. This current school year we received $5,877.00 per student enrolled in OCS from the BOCC. We are also fortunate to have a superintendent and Chief Financial Officer who believes in handling money wisely and efficiently. With program evaluation by our superintendent, Curriculum and Instruction, as well as input from teachers and principals, approximately $700,000.00 was saved this past year on programs that were not serving students’ needs or not benefitting our teachers’ instructional efforts.

As a board we can continue to lobby lawmakers for more state funding. Our Legislative and House representatives understand the need to retain high quality teachers in our district. We will continue to ask for critical funding for students and teachers. 

8. Across the Triangle, thousands of students have stayed home from school during federal immigration enforcement sweeps. What can the board realistically do to make OCS a welcoming and safe environment for all students, regardless of immigration status?

We are supporting Hispanic and immigrant students through the constant work and communication of our School Social Workers and Family Liaisons. They are in touch with families to access needs, whether it is to help with translations or access to other resources, making sure that the students have what is needed for success in school. These have proven to be essential positions for helping families and I am in support of hiring more Family Liaisons to ensure that we are serving and communicating with our families daily. OCS now has staff in our main school offices who speak dual languages, something that is critical to convey important school information to non-English speaking families. 

Our Board presented a Proclamation at the February 2025 board meeting to articulate and show support for our Hispanic and immigrant families. This Proclamation was presented again at our December 2025 meeting to re-emphasize our continual support and assistance.

9. Many districts are struggling with teacher recruitment. What are your ideas for recruiting and retaining educators?

One of the most important things we can do is to continue to advocate for increases in the state’s teacher pay scale along with working to increase our local supplement. We must also continue to focus on providing relevant professional development to help them in the classroom, timely data to help them identify where students need more help, and the resources they need to teach and support our students.

Our Human Resources Department has reduced the number of vacancies at the start of the school year for the past three years – this past August we had 11 vacancies, compared to 17.5 the previous year and 22 the year prior. Part of this success is certainly related to our local supplement, but also to our comprehensive process which includes a mentorship program, quarterly group meetings with an HR specialist to discuss concerns and topics of interest or matters that are pertinent to their classroom or grade level, and other support systems like PLC’s

10. 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 OCS board best support teachers who are trying to make sure that students are still learning the basics and thinking critically?

We must first have training for our teachers and staff so that they fully understand the pluses and minuses to AI. This needs to be carried out by thoughtful and deliberate training with our IT Department sharing the information that they have received in their training. It is critical that updates be shared with everyone as information is received, as this information is changing quickly and rapidly. We have established a District Committee on AI to explore the issues and concerns regarding AI in education and to bring guidance to the board for future policy. Learning to teach in an AI world will require targeted professional development for our teachers. While this is essential, it often takes away from being able to do their everyday jobs. Explaining the importance and the projected outcomes will help staff to understand the critical need for training.

There can be value to using AI when used appropriately, we just need to make sure that everyone understands what the appropriateness is and how it can be a beneficial tool for their use.

11. If there is anything else you would like to address, please do so here.