<body><div>Name as it appears on the ballot: Lindsay Mahaffey<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4fGyqP_0w9bZ49o00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4fGyqP_0w9bZ49o00" width="819" height="1024" ></figure>Age: 42Party affiliation: DemocratCampaign website: <a href="https://www.electlindsay.com/">electlindsay.com</a>Occupation &amp; employer: Mom of 3 &amp; former teacher (French and Spanish) with a Masters in Social Studies, Current School Board memberYears lived in the area: 9<ol><li>What are the three main issues that you believe the Wake County Public</li></ol><ol><li>Schools Board of Education needs to address in the upcoming years?</li></ol>Student Achievement &amp; Wellbeing. Staff Recruitment &amp; Retention. Facilities.2. Employee pay across the system has been a consistent concern, and whilethe board was able to raise wages for many workers this year, underfundingat the state level will likely persist. How can WCPSS remain competitive interms of compensation, and how can the school system support its lowestpaid workers who make less than $40,000/year on a 10-month payschedule?We are so fortunate to have a county commission and a community that believes in astrong public education system. Continuing to remind people of the constitutionalresponsibility of the legislature to fund school employee salaries is important, workingto supplement those wages with local dollars is important and working with ourbusiness community who can also lobby for support of education and teacher pay isimportant.3. Do you support the Biden administration’s new federal Title IX rules thatban discrimination based on gender identity and expand protections for LGBTQ students? Please explain your position.The Board of Education has updated their policies to reflect new legislation many times in my tenure. We did this when new Title IX changes were adopted in 2017 and again in 2023. Our job is to ensure our policies correctly reflect legislation.4. Do you support North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarships (otherwiseknown as vouchers for private schools)? Why or why not? How do you thinkthey impact public schools?No I don’t, and I say this as a former private school teacher and a graduate of publicschools. Private schools do not have to have the same requirements as public schools.They are not required to provide meals or transportation, they are not required to have a majority of their teachers to be licensed, they do not have a requirement to follow IEPs and 504 plans – some may use public schools to provide those resources for students enrolled in their private schools. I believe that when public tax dollars are used it should require three things: 1 – A publicly shared budget and feedback process to share how those tax dollars will be spent. The WCPSS budget that is shared publicly and has a public input process – this is not a requirement for private institutions receiving public tax dollars 2-Public accountability in the form of an audit to ensure the institutionreceiving this public funding is in good financial standing. Each fall WCPSS shares theresults of our audit which is a comprehensive audit of our prior year’s spending. This isnot a requirement for private schools receiving public tax dollars 3- Public schools are required to follow state standards for each grade level and report testing results for each school to show the growth and proficiency of students. This data collection allows schools to know where they need to grow for students and their academic strengths. Private schools do not need to abide by state academic standards nor do they have to share their student’s testing results.5. WCPSS administrators just released the first draft of a new school reassignment plan for the 2025-26 school year that will populate four new schools in southern and southwestern Wake County. Do you support the draft plan? What, if anything, needs to change in the plan?Student assignment is an issue that will be ongoing as WCPSS &amp; Wake County continueto grow. I have been in constant communication with our office of Student Assignmentto review potential changes that are based on the feedback we are seeing from familiesin the Thought Exchange. Student Assignment staff will be releasing a second draft later in October. I will continue to review parent feedback with the team to see whether other changes are possible. This is a process that began a year ago with soliciting feedback from potentially impacted families and more feedback was sought in the spring prior to the draft being created. This is an ongoing process listening to families, working with staff in order to fill new schools and relieve crowding at others.6) What is the role of School Resource Officers (SROs) in schools?In WCPSS, the Sheriff’s office and other local law enforcement agenciesprovide officers as School Resource Officers (SROs) in many of our schools. Therole of SROs is laid out in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed byall agencies involved. The district also provides training for SROs annually inthe form of an SRO summit in the summer and another training in the wintermonths. SRO officers are not meant to enforce school disciplinary matters thatcan be handled by school administration.7) The ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’ law seeks to give parents more control overtheir children’s education. How should WCPSS balance compliance with thelaw with students’ rights to privacy and teachers’ ability to provide a soundbasic education?WCPSS has policies that have been implemented to be in compliance with SB49 theParent’s Bill of Rights. It is imperative that we are respectful of the student experience. We must equip our teachers with guidance in a way that does not burden them orimpact their academic time. In October of 2022 the Board approved our Equity Policywhich also guides our District.8) How should WCPSS deal with efforts to ban books in schools?WCPSS has outlined the selection process in Policy 3200 Selection of InstructionalMaterials and requires age appropriate materials in each school level. This includes theschool media coordinator who has a Master’s degree in library science, and the schoolMedia Technology Advisory Committee. This policy also outlines the requirements forcore instructional materials and supplemental materials. WCPSS also has a processoutlined in Policy Code: 3210 Parental Inspection of and Objection to InstructionalMaterials to review books that a school parent deems inappropriate and wants to beremoved from the school library. These processes are and have been used to select new books and to review books that are challenged.9) Recently, Durham Public Schools implemented a Universal Free Lunchprogram that provides nutritious free breakfasts and lunches to all of thesystem’s students. The Wake County school board, on the other hand, votedto charge more for meals this academic year. Was this the right move?Should WCPSS follow DPS’s lead and find a way to provide free meals to thedistrict’s students?WCPSS had over 40 schools eligible to receive free meals using the Federal Dollars with the Community Eligibility Program. With its 56 schools DPS was able to cover allschools using this federal money. WCPSS has 199 schools. WCPSS has created a districtwide Angel Fund to help wipe out Student Lunch Debt and has conversations with ourCounty Commission on what covering meals for students at all 199 schools would looklike as it would have to use local dollars from property taxes and be able to purchasefood, supplies, and cover staff salaries. Child Nutrition Service workers are paid (bystatute) from the monies collected for school lunches as an enterprise fund. I am excited to explore and support the expansion of free school meals in the Wake County Public School System.10) Research has shown an achievement gap for Wake County Schools students based on race and socioeconomic status. What specific policies would you support or what actions would you take to help close the gap so that race and socioeconomic status don’t persist as predictive factors?The Board of Education has worked extensively on a Strategic Plan that outlines ourcore beliefs, and our goals for our students. These are goals that are rooted in academic excellence &amp; equity, student wellbeing &amp; disposition and operational efficiency. This past year we saw our highest graduation rate with 91.3% of our students graduating in 2024. We have our first look at our subgroups related to this plan and our equity focused goals require that the district look hard at how we can better assist all students to eliminate these disparities long before a cap and gown come into the picture. I encourage everyone to look through the strategic plan. This is also where our equitypolicy comes into play and understanding that students need culturally relevantresources and adults in the building with an understanding and appreciation of different cultures. Our equity policy states that equity is both a noun and a verb, it cannot just live on paper, it has to live in action.</div></body>

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Candidate Questionnaire: Lindsay Mahaffey, Wake County Board of Education, District 8

Name as it appears on the ballot: Lindsay Mahaffey. Occupation & employer: Mom of 3 & former teacher (French and Spanish) with a Masters in Social Studies, Current School Board member. Years lived in the area: 9. What are the three main issues that you believe the Wake County Public.