Durham Public Schools Board of Education, At-Large: Joy Harrell

Name as it appears on the ballot: Joy Harrell

Age: 48

Party affiliation: Democrat

Campaign website: bringjoytodps.com

Occupation and employer: Executive Director and Visionary Conductor – BUMP: The Triangle

Years lived in the area: 16 yrs

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

My top three priorities for the Durham Public Schools Board are to 

1. Invest in student learning

Nothing is more frustrating than the expectation to deliver something magnificent without the correct tools and resources. I believe that all children deserve a quality public school education and that investing in our public schools is an investment in our children. This is why I’m committed to investing in Student Learning. This means investing in our teachers and all support staff to provide the quality tools and resources necessary for highly effective teaching and learning.

2. Create safer spaces in our schools.

One urgent issue facing Durham is this protracted period of multifaceted, complex violence we find ourselves in. Our youth are literally dying in the street, and our communities are struggling with deep-rooted trauma. DPS cannot avoid or ignore the intersectionality of this violence and the direct impact it has on our learning environments. 

It’s important to acknowledge that our students and staff thrive in spaces where they feel safe to be authentically themselves. We must do what it takes to build, nurture and protect the learning environments they require to thrive, be healthy and safe.

3. Center our students, communities, and educators

Decisions about the education of our youth should be made with our youth and their communities in order to provide excellent, equitable, and culturally relevant learning.

Our students harness great power to solve complex issues in society, and adults should learn to listen to and trust our youth more. Families are experts on their children, which makes them our schools’ most valuable partners.  Teachers  are experts in student learning and should be trusted to make curricular choices best suited to both facilitate learning and build strong, powerful relationships with students. If we make decisions along with our youth and their communities, we can model for our students what it means to feel supported and interdependent. 

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?

Public Education is a service that requires extraordinary human resource. Our DPS teachers and staff are the ones who make our schools run. They absolutely deserve to be valued for ALL of their experience, and it’s essential that they receive competitive pay. Not only must our School Board fight for every dollar that our schools deserve, but it must also create incentives that offer real value to educators outside of Durham to move here and plant roots. 

As a member of our School Board, I will also make it a priority to nurture the next generation of educators. DPS has the privilege of being in close proximity to colleges and universities with excellent teacher programs, such as NC Central University. We should strengthen our partnerships with teacher preparation programs and invest in growing our own initiatives that bring DPS graduates back home to teach in their communities.

Finally, we have to acknowledge how institutionalized racism, inequities, the complexities of  gender identity, language, culture, and class within our school systems especially tarnishes the working conditions of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ educators as well as teachers with disabilities. It’s important that we use a lens of equity and humanity to create safer teaching and learning spaces for the retention and recruitment of diverse teachers and staff for our beautifully diverse student population.

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?

Students of color are still suspended from school at a disproportionately higher rate than white students. Punitive practices in our school are often harmful, as they react to troubling behaviors rather than preventing them. The school board should seek and support more effective methods and models that are intentionally restorative, far less punitive, and can allow students and their teachers to focus on impactful teaching and learning. Occasionally, suspending a student may be a solution. However if that student has more than one suspension, my opinion is that the root causes of the behavior have not been addressed. In my career as an educator, I have always made efforts to tackle the underlying root causes of behavioral challenges, which requires an acknowledgement of racial inequities and disparities as well as an acknowledgement of the value and need for cultural knowledge, sensibilities, and practices from students’ trusted communities. 

I believe school administrators, teachers and staff  should display competencies and high level skills and intelligence to democratically interact with the students. I would love to see principals recruited to DPS who demonstrate they have those characteristics along with exceptional emotional intelligence. I feel our principals could use support through access to coaching, professional development, and evaluations for effective emotional responsiveness. I am aware that principals have a state evaluation tool. However, NC has no standard of evaluation for empathy or emotional intelligence for principals. I find this concerning because principals alone can make decisions that impact individual students and their school with or without empathy or effective emotional responsiveness. The school board needs to  support the hiring and development of a superintendent, DPS principals, teachers, and staff that are professionally empathetic and emotionally intelligent decision makers and leaders.

As a Black mother with students in DPS, this issue is close to my heart. I am overwhelmed with emotion when I consider all the ways BIPOC students are dehumanized. I remember what it was like when I was a Black student navigating through systems that devalued my Blackness. I want to do everything I can to provide students of color the correct narratives about who they are, what they’ve come from, how valuable they are, and how much we need them. 

Asking our community the right questions is also vital to applying a  lens of racial equity to our policies concerning safety and discipline as a district. To do so, we also need to focus on interrogating the assumptions we make on the effectiveness of our existing racial equity policies. I believe in always considering new perspectives and searching for ways to improve the lives of our students. DPS can look to the work of organizations in our community like the Durham Harm Free Zone and the Durham Community Safety and Wellness Task Force for guidance through the complexities of race, gender identity, language, culture, and class to address the harm within our communities of color. 

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 agree that parents and families are experts on their children, and they’re absolutely vital to their success and well-being. However, it’s important to remember that educators are experts in student learning and should be trusted to make the best possible curricular choices. Our students, too, should be free to learn and develop their own sense of identity. Students harness great power to solve complex issues in society, and adults–particularly our lawmakers in Raleigh–should learn to listen to and trust our youth more.

The new Parent Bill of Rights Law does not fully consider the ways in which its enforcement could sever trust necessary for these critical relationships or how it could create harm to students, particularly to LGBTQ youth who are not ready to reveal their identity preferences to their parents. It is important that we protect trusted, caring, gender-affirming relationships that youth often build in their schools as part of the required compliance to this law.

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?

The General Assembly is obligated to comply with the state Supreme Court order in the Leandor case to fully fund public schools and give every child in North Carolina a sound basic education. We have waited far too long for the general assembly to act on its constitutional duty to protect  the constitutional rights of North Carolina schoolchildren.We have to hold the general assembly to this obligation for the health of our public schools and for the foundation of our democracy. 

Other policies lawmaker should enact at the state level to strengthen public education include:

1. Get per pupil spending up to at least the national average instead of the national bottom.
2. Repeal “right to work” laws in order to give workers the right to strong union representation and fair wages competitive with education workers around the region, east coast, and nation.
3. Create policies that prioritize resources to Title 1 (high poverty) schools instead of policies that punish them for wealth disparities that they did not create.
4. Create policies that eradicate food and housing insecurity among children. This is one of the most pressing issues in education. 

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?

Yes, I support the recommendations of the Durham Safety and Wellness Task Force. I personally have seen how the HEART program can be helpful to our students. I recently was involved in a situation with a family in crisis because their child had run away from home. Because the child was afraid of police officers, we called 911 and asked that the police look for the child with a representative from the HEART program. The child was safely returned home; to my knowledge, the family is receiving additional support as a result of the call. 

That being said, the HEART program is still very new and I would like to see more community engagement work done to educate the community on its purpose and how they can access the service. I’m looking forward to more conversations about expanding HEART into our school system and what that could look like within the existing SRO program. We need the resources to support student mental health and better implement restorative, less-punitive practices. The role of an SRO in Durham schools should be to build trusted relationships with students and staff for the purpose of protecting and growing joyful, robust teaching and learning environments that keep everyone safe.

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?

Environmentally sustainable school development is a pillar of my platform. I’m an advocate for a school construction bond to improve school infrastructure. We need mold remediation where necessary as well as HVAC repair and other needed renovations. 

The important thing to keep in mind is this: we’re not just trying to fix the problems immediately in front of us. Rather, it’s our obligation to set our schools up to thrive for decades to come. We can’t afford to simply throw money into development that won’t be sustainable. That’s why we must ensure that all new construction has a net zero carbon footprint. We can accomplish this through geothermal heat pumps, water reclamation systems, solarization, and the use of electric buses and vehicle chargers. 

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?

The decision has already been made to relocate Durham School of the Arts. Going off of  my last answer, the focus now is to ensure that our new development is environmentally sustainable and unobtrusive to student learning. Our students deserve to go to a good school that they can feel proud of, and it is our responsibility to provide buildings that are safe and welcoming. 

In regards to the currently existing DSA building, I have heard it be suggested that we use it to consolidate DPS’s central office services into one space so that they’re more accessible to the community from one location. I think that this could be an exciting step, but I’m open to other ideas as long as they put students and families first. 

9. How should schools ensure that high school students are prepared for tw0- or four-year college or are career-ready and have the skills to take advantage of new economic opportunities coming to Durham upon graduation?

Each student is beautiful and brilliant in their own way, and DPS must work to prepare students for the full range of college and career pathways. Not every child will go to college, and we must be honest about the fact that career and technical training can open pathways to good paying jobs for our students. 

Part of centering students is an acknowledgment that kids should have agency in determining their own path in life. If a student knows they want to go to college and is passionate about debating big ideas in philosophy and government, they probably don’t need to take electrical engineering or plumbing classes. Similarly, if a student has a passion for auto mechanics, they may be more motivated to learn the skills needed for that career pathway than they are to interpret and write poetry. The challenge is making sure that each student has equitable opportunities and feels invited to follow the field that calls to them. It’s important to do this without creating a narrative that the college pathway is “better than” other pathways. 

I need to first develop a more complete understanding of both DPS course offerings within Career and Technical Education, as well as existing DPS partnerships with Durham Tech and apprenticeship programs. In general I believe in:

• Expanding support for DPS students to gain meaningful real work experience through apprenticeships with local businesses that also agree to partner with and support Durham Public Schools. 
• Highlighting the successes of students that graduate through the CTE pathway so that more students and parents view this as a rigorous and desirable option. 
• Implementing a grow-your-own program for DPS students interested in careers as teachers, school counselors, or key roles as educators. The City of Medicine Academy is a great example of how DPS prepares students for employment as health care professionals, and we can look to that as well as successful programs like Teacher Cadet as models to build upon. 

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

We must provide mental health and wellness support in the form of trusted counselors, school social workers, and community partners for students and staff. Going further, it’s important that we remove barriers to providing on site services for students and staff and establish more effective systems that make it easier – not harder – for communities to support our school populations.

One initiative that has recently excited me is The Whole Schools Movement, which addresses the mental health fallout of the pandemic. Brought about by a partnership between DPS, Duke Health, and DPS Foundation, it has set out to provide holistic and culturally relevant mental health support to our students. This kind of forward-thinking work is what our city needs more of. 

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