![](\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/cynthia_matson-300x230.jpg\" "\\"cynthia_matson\\"")
<\/a>Age: 45\nOccupation: Campus Director, ITT Technical Institute in
\nDurham
\nWebsite: www.cynthiamatsonforschoolboard.com<\/p>\n
<\/a>Age: 45
\nOccupation: Campus Director, ITT Technical Institute in
\nDurham
\nWebsite: www.cynthiamatsonforschoolboard.com<\/p>\n
How long have you lived in Wake County? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 17 years<\/p>\n Do you have children in the district? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Two children in middle school.<\/p>\n Why have you decided to run for office? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Because I want to have a positive effect on academic excellence and assignment stability.<\/p>\n What are the three biggest issues you think the Wake County Public School System faces? In 30 seconds or less, how would you address those issues? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Assignment stability would definitely be the first. Academic excellence. I would like to see parents given more choice in where their children are assigned. I\u2019d like to see more equity in choices offered through\u00adout the district. I would like to see resources allo\u00adcated to schools where the population needs them the most. I\u2019d also like to see more support for teachers throughout the district.<\/p>\n I would do this through better engagement and continuing to keep the system operating in a lean manner administratively so there are more resources for classrooms. I would bring in more programs offered in the district so parents don\u2019t have to go outside the district to get the resources only certain schools offer.<\/p>\n What do you think are the best and worst decisions the current school board has made? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Best: They made a great decision in hiring Superin\u00adtendent Tata. They made the right decision when, in this budget, they did not cut teachers. They made a great decision in creating Renaissance schools and STEM schools.<\/p>\n Worst: I\u2019m not sure there are any negative things to say about the cur\u00adrent administration other than I feel there is always room for more commu\u00adnity engagement and in\u00adput, and parents are the resources we need most. There are a few things I\u2019d like to see, like a new grad\u00ading system in elementary schools as opposed to the 1, 2, 3, 4 system. I would like to see us try measur\u00ading annual growth on end-of-grade tests. Not just did they pass, but what were the percentages, accurate\u00adly track academic gains and losses on a per-student basis.<\/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 Equity in offerings in my district. For e x amp l e , we do not have foreign languages in all mid\u00addle schools, yet we have some with six different languages in middle school. That\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about when I say equity for all students: the same oppor\u00adtunities, the same ability to apply to schools that have that offering.<\/p>\n What do you think WCPSS should do to address the achievement gap? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n When it comes down to academic achievement, I believe that the annual yearly progress, the AYP, really helps to identify which subgroups of stu\u00addents on the school level need additional resources. I think it\u2019s a good tool for teachers and administra\u00adtors to use to know where to focus their efforts. I think we need to utilize the data because the data speaks.<\/p>\n What are your ideas for measuring and improving teacher and student effectiveness in WCPSS? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Focus in on what the needs of our students are: perhaps tutoring, lower student-teacher ratios, in\u00adcentives for teachers, prin\u00adcipals, even cafeteria work\u00aders that if students achieve the required gains, they get a bonus. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing in the Renaissance Schools.<\/p>\n Do you support merit pay for teachers? Why or why not? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, be\u00adcause I think com\u00adpetition is healthy and challenges ev\u00aderyone to do their best.<\/p>\n How do you think WCPSS should attract more minority teachers? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m a former recruiter so there are many ways that we can attract top talent. One of the best ways is to headhunt talent that is al\u00adready employed. I believe there is a plethora of good teachers employed right here in the community. I\u2019d like to focus on employ\u00ading people locally. The best way to do that is to reach out to organizations where they\u2019re employed, as well as LinkedIn and by referrals. It\u2019s who you know. It\u2019s be\u00ading able to look at our own community to find that talent.<\/p>\n How do you feel about the new student assignment plan that\u2019s shaping up? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n There are three primary drivers for both plans [The Green Plan and the Blue Plan]: proximity, stability and student achievement. Based on my long involve\u00adment with reform so that we can have community school assignment, sta\u00adbility and more academic achievement, I\u2019m in favor of this draft, but there\u2019s more work to do to final\u00adize the plan. It\u2019s extremely important how the admin\u00adistration went to our com\u00admunity for input. When I started my organization [Assignment by Choice] in 2002, we did not have community input. There was no long-term plan for growth. As a result, As\u00adsignment by Choice was able to meet with the ad\u00administration and pressure them to engage the com\u00admunity in implementing a plan utilizing information that we researched.<\/p>\n How do charter schools fit in to your conception of a healthy school district? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Charter schools are pub\u00adlic schools. I feel that with continued growth in Wake County, thousands more students every year, charter schools are another option. I\u2019m very glad the General Assembly lifted the cap on charter schools.<\/p>\n How would you address the issue of student discipline? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Quite honestly, I think school uniforms would help with the discipline issue. I\u2019ve seen it work in Greenville. From my un\u00adderstanding, it\u2019s reduced identifiably gang-related activity, cut down on disci\u00adpline issues and dress code violations.<\/p>\n What would you do to ensure that WCPSS has the funding to educate its students adequately? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n We can only spend what we earn, so to speak. We have become lean with our budget. Right now we need to be land banking, buying land now for future school buildings. If you look at the market in property and the housing market, it\u2019s not the best time. We need to determine where to build schools and buy that land now. Now is the time to buy at a discount. People are much more like\u00adly to sell it just to sell it at a reasonable price. Almost 72 percent of our tax dol\u00adlars in Wake County go to the schools. How we uti\u00adlize funds by the way we manage resources is how I expect to bring additional resources into the county.<\/p>\n What was your favorite subject in school? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Social studies, because of the teacher. It wasn\u2019t the subject but how he en\u00adgaged me in learning. As I hire instructors on my own campus, of course they must meet the require\u00adments for the subject, but to me their energy and how they would engage my stu\u00addents is the deciding factor for teachers in my college.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Age: 45 Occupation: Campus Director, ITT Technical Institute in Durham Website: www.cynthiamatsonforschoolboard.com How long have you lived in Wake County? 17 years Do you have children in the district? Two children in middle school. Why have you decided to run for office? Because I want to have a positive effect on academic excellence and assignment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[378],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}