![](\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/maryannweathers-300x200.jpg\" "\\"maryannweathers\\"")
<\/a>Age: 65\nOccupation: Retired Educator<\/p>\n
<\/a>Age: 65
\nOccupation: Retired Educator<\/p>\n
How long have you lived in Wake County? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m a native. I\u2019ve worked other places, but I was born here and this is home.<\/p>\n Why have you decided to run for office? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I became concerned about the Wake County school system. I feel like I owe a lot to it. It served me well in my life and in my career. I became concerned when, specifically, I heard about the system having its accreditation lessened. I be\u00adcame concerned when my sister said she was glad her kids weren\u2019t in the Wake County schools anymore, and I became concerned when I saw that it took three hours and 56 votes to elect a vice-chairman. I\u2019ve worked with boards all over the state and all over the country, and this is just not the way boards behave. I just thought, you know, I\u2019m tough enough. I\u2019m smart enough. I\u2019ve got the credentials. Let\u2019s go do it.<\/p>\n What do you think are the best and worst decisions the current school board has made? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I just met Tony Tata at a training session, and I am more impressed with him than I thought I would be. I think he may be their best decision. He\u2019s not a yes man to them. He seems to be taking everything into account. Maybe his mili\u00adtary background pays off there.<\/p>\n The worst thing: I\u2019m ex\u00adtremely concerned about accreditation. That\u2019s the number one thing. But, I\u2019m also extremely concerned about the demoraliza\u00adtion of teachers. Teachers are extremely concerned about losing their jobs at the hands of a school board that is operating at the whims of some politi\u00adcal force. And to be really frank with you, that force is the Republicans.<\/p>\n What do you think is the most important issue facing your district, and how do you plan to address it? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Accreditation would be number one at the top of my list, and that is guar\u00adanteeing a certified teacher appropriate to the needs or the talents of every sin\u00adgle child, not groups of children, but every single child, wherever that child lives in Wake County. That probably speaks to the issue of achievement, too. I\u2019m concerned that the Republicans think that achievement for any child is measured by some point on a graph, and it isn\u2019t. Data reports are good, but they do not address the needs of individual students.<\/p>\n What do you think WCPSS should do to address the achievement gap? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I think we\u2019re moving in some of the right direc\u00adtions in terms of the new placement plan. That\u2019s going to be a good test. I still have my concerns about that, t h o u g h , because I think huge p o p u l a \u00adtions are left out of that. I\u2019m concerned a b o u t a c h i e v e \u00adment for each and every child, not just nodes of children.<\/p>\n What are your ideas for measuring and improving teacher and student effectiveness in WCPSS? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n We don\u2019t know every\u00adthing we need to know about measuring teach\u00ader and student effective\u00adness. We tend to take a cookie-cutter approach to evaluating teachers. A classroom like English or Social Studies is not effec\u00adtive in the same way that a math classroom is. You can\u2019t measure them all the same way because they are not developing the same skills or talents. I think we need to do a lot more work at that level. Teachers have to be on the frontline of improving effectiveness. It can\u2019t be superimposed. I believe that teachers have to be responsible for get\u00adting rid of the deadwood in the profession.<\/p>\n Do you support merit pay for teachers? Why or why not? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I would support merit pay for teachers. The Re\u00adpublicans have a notion of giving merit pay strictly on student a c h i e v e \u00adm e n t , back again to those points on the graph, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the approach. I think that every teacher in a school, ev\u00adery parent in a school and even every stu\u00addent in a school knows who the best teachers are, whether they\u2019re working with the highest scorers on a test or not.<\/p>\n How do you think WCPSS should attract more minority teachers? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Make it the place peo\u00adple want to be. Schools are the place that teachers go to work and they should love going to work and love what they do and be rewarded for it. If all that happened then people would be knocking down our doors to come here.<\/p>\n How do you feel about the new student assignment plan that\u2019s shaping up? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m reserving my final judgment. I\u2019m impressed with what I\u2019ve seen so far. I like what they\u2019re doing with siblings and grand\u00adfathering. I love magnet schools, and maybe that will help us not go through the disaster that Charlotte- Mecklenburg schools went through. They went to a strictly neighborhood plan and threw the school sys\u00adtem back into the \u201850s.<\/p>\n How do charter schools fit in to your conception of a healthy school district? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n If people want to have charter schools or private schools or home schools, let them have it. But, don\u2019t take anything away from the public schools in terms of resources. The public schools are still the ba\u00adsis for our democracy. If the public schools are not strong, then the commu\u00adnity will not be strong. I would want them to meet the same accreditation and certification standards. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don\u2019t, but I just don\u2019t want them tak\u00ading resources away from the public schools.<\/p>\n How would you address the issue of student discipline? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The professional staff and the supporting staff need more training in that. Back when I was a kid, when the earth was cool\u00ading and dinosaurs roamed, if you got in trouble in school, then you got it twice when you got home. I think we need more and more parental support. But I think the truth of the matter is sometimes the pa\u00adrental support is not there. For some kids, school is the best place they go and that\u2019s where they have to learn discipline, too. A kid who is already beat down and is acting out because he or she is beat down, doesn\u2019t need to be beat down some more. We just need more alternatives.<\/p>\n What would you do to ensure that WCPSS has the funding to educate its students adequately? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m not na\u00efve. I doubt that the legislature or the county commissioners are going to give us a lot more, so we need to look at the pot we have and just real\u00adlocate. We do this with our own budgets all the time. If we need to do more, then we rearrange where we spend the money. The school system seems to be doing some of that, too, and I think we\u2019re going to have to do more and more of it given the cur\u00adrent economic and politi\u00adcal climate.<\/p>\n What was your favorite subject in school? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Math. It was always my easiest subject and I loved it. I had wonderful math teachers here in Raleigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Age: 65 Occupation: Retired Educator How long have you lived in Wake County? I\u2019m a native. I\u2019ve worked other places, but I was born here and this is home. Why have you decided to run for office? I became concerned about the Wake County school system. I feel like I owe a lot to it. 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