Elkin school board candidates QA

For the Elkin Board of Education election there are two official candidates on the ballot this fall as well as one person campaigning as a write-in.

For the city district seat on the school board, incumbent Dr. Richard Brinegar is running for reelection on the Republican ticket.

A write-in slot will also appear on the ballot this election for the city district seat and candidate WT Stille IV is campaigning as a write-in. This will be the first time since Board of Education elections in Surry County became partisan that a candidate will be campaigning as a write-in. Stille had to obtain approved signatures from one percent of the registered voters from the Elkin school district on a deadline of 90 days prior to the election in order for the write in space to be included on the ballot. Stille needed 45 approved signatures and he had 59 approved signatures turned in to the Surry County Board of Elections. Still said he is pursuing election to the school board via write-in candidacy after learning that Brinegar does have plans to move out of the school district. Brinegar confirmed last week that there has been an offer on his house which has been for sale and he does have plans to move out of district. He said those plans are pending the sale of his home in Elkin and not finalized. He said he was asked to remain on the board by fellow board members until such time as his plans are finalized for a move out of district.

Also on the Republican ticket, running unopposed for the east district seat, is candidate Haley McCoin Sullivan.

Candidates Brinegar and Stille completed the following questionnaire about their run to serve on the Elkin School Board. Answers below are published in their entirety as submitted by the candidates. A response to the questionnaire from candidate Sullivan was not received in time for press deadline.

Candidate: Richard Brinegar

BIO: I was born in Elkin and have deep roots in the ECS system. My parents, as well as all my aunts, uncles and cousins went through the ECS. I have been married to my wife Ava for over 30 years. We have three grown sons, Joshua, Daniel and Paul all who have graduated from Elkin High School.

Education: DVM — North Carolina State University; MDiv — Duke University; MA — Indiana University; BA — UNC Greensboro; AA, AS — Surry Community College

Occupation: Owner, Veterinarian- Animal Ark Veterinary Hospital and the Yadkin Valley Pet Funeral Services; Pastor — Antioch Methodist Church in Glade Valley

Q: What experience(s) have you had that you believe would make you an asset to the School Board?

A: 12 years serving on the BOE with 6 years as Chairman, I believe makes me an asset to the School Board.

Q: What are the most important issues you feel are facing students in Elkin and how can those issues best be addressed?

A: Students are facing a complicated, diverse and very polarizing world that they must live in today. We, as a community and a school system, must prepare the students to be successful in this world. I believe this is best done with a holistic approach of meeting each student’s needs daily and providing them with the support system so that they may reach their highest potential.

Q: What do you feel is the most important aspect of education in order to prepare young people for their future?

A: The most important aspect of education in order to prepare young people for the future is a sound basic education as defined by state law as the cornerstone. This sound basic education should then be built upon and tailored for each individual person based on their talents, gifts and desires.

Q: How do you think Elkin teachers can best be supported in their roles?

A: Elkin teachers are the most dedicated and hardest working teachers in the state. They can best be supported by giving them the time, resources, space, and a voice to do the job that they were trained to do which is to educate our children. We as a community and a BOE must take away anything that might hinder or prevent them from doing this very important task.

Candidate: WT Stille IV

BIO: My registered name is WT Stille IV, but Elkin knows me as “Ted.” I grew up a public school student in a very large system in Philadelphia. I joined the military at 17 and attended the United States Air Force Academy for undergrad. I served for 14 years culminating as an officer working special projects for Space Command. I left active duty to join my wife and go back to school. I earned a master’s degree in education from Wake Forest and taught high school English in Forsyth County. My wife’s service as an OB/GYN in the Air Force took us to Alaska where we lived for 13 happy years. Our hope for a more stable educational future for our three kids brought us back to NC, and my wife’s desire to serve patients who are also our community brought us to Elkin. Our children are students in Elkin City Schools. We live in Elkin City District, and I am running as a write-in for Dr. Brinegar’s City District seat.

Q: What experience(s) have you had that you believe would make you an asset to the School Board?

A: Service and leadership: I understand the principles of service to a larger cause. Service dictates when to be out in front and when to listen to the expertise and advice of others. A role like school board member demands one who appreciates that he is not the center of the issue. This was true for me as an officer in combat operations and later as a part of complex tactical and strategic planning in the military. The challenges were bigger than me and the objectives too important, requiring a humility to accept that I didn’t always have a complete understanding of a situation. Later as a public school teacher and then director of a non-profit, I learned a softer side of leadership. When an organization is built on volunteers and at-will employees, like our public schools, a more rounded approach based on listening and mutual-respect achieves the best outcomes and the greatest buy-in. The art of balancing consensus building and vision is best done through collaboration. All of my experiences, including my passion for backcountry travel in Alaska have honed an ability to approach challenges with a risk management lens that synthesizes a wide and complicated array of inputs to make objective judgements and decisions with other people.

Q: What are the most important issues you feel are facing students in Elkin and how can those issues best be addressed?

A: Expectations, facilities, and teacher support. Elkin is a growing community. While public schools around the country are shrinking, ours is steadily growing. We cannot miss this opportunity. Elkin has a great tradition of academic excellence. Kacy and I chose Elkin for our family because of its reputation as a town grounded in the obligation and expectation to prepare kids to be able to choose their own destiny, whether that be college admissions or immediate access to good paying jobs in the work force. We are foolish to look over our shoulder at that tradition without a mind for how we need to evolve and serve our current and future students. Service to our legacy likely means difficult decisions about how we move on from tradition, but not our expectations for excellence. Our facilities need to be expanded and repurposed to meet space and instructional needs as well as be more resilient in a changing climate. Elkin must retain and attract the best possible teachers and staff to help students realize their potential. Situated between so many teaching programs, ECS should showcase itself as the best place a new teacher and families can imagine, and one that those who are already here will stay and invest in. We can’t change the state pay scale, but we can build a stronger student services program to augment our Exceptional Children’s program and mental health support for kids. Teachers will always be a part of this support, but other professionals and paraprofessionals can also be in place.

Q: What do you feel is the most important aspect of education in order to prepare young people for their future?

A: Adaptability and an allegiance to one another: Our children’s lives and landscapes are changing at an unprecedented pace. Preparing them for their best futures means providing a curriculum and fundamental skills. Schools grow those skills into an ability to think critically about problems for themselves. Bloom’s taxonomy is a resource that says one cannot achieve higher-order thought (evaluate and create) without lower-order function (recall and identify). It is a set of competencies that must be taught and exercised with an array of experiences and materials over many years. A student who can work up and down that taxonomy of thought can adapt to any set of problems and challenges during her dynamic life. But she cannot do it alone. Today’s and tomorrow’s challenges are too big and too complex to expect a good life going it alone. Our public schools are American democracy’s greatest creation and the most necessary incubator for our own success. Democracy is about collective decision making for all the people it includes. Over 12-years in public schools, children can discover themselves and see one another, different as they may be, from a foundation of shared experiences and common understanding. This breeds an allegiance to their peers that will give students the mettle to continue when faced with challenge and the optimism to improve.

Q: How do you think Elkin teachers can best be supported in their roles?

A: Instructional resources: NC Department of Instruction provides guidelines for what every child in the state should have access to in public schools. Under a broad definition we call that curriculum. What the state does not necessarily provide are materials, frameworks and structures to deliver that curriculum. This is a great opportunity for school districts and a great burden. As expensive (and heavy) as they were, textbooks have been replaced with much more complex materials. Now it is a collection of on-line sources, digital subscriptions, workbooks and photocopies from teacher selected texts. Some of those resources, especially in classes that are evaluated by state testing regimes, are paid for by the district. But in the absence of traditional text book contracts (which were certainly flawed as gate keepers to information) teachers use and sometimes pay for third-party vendors that package curriculum standards in a best-attempt to deliver content. Teachers deserve better resources to practice their craft, and they shouldn’t have to pay for it themselves. A teacher needs the latitude to make choices about how to teach a lesson. But in a small district where there are rarely more than 3 teachers teaching a given curriculum and frequently only one, we can’t shift that entire burden to the teacher. With teacher input a district can support teachers by selecting quality materials for them to use. This also ensures a more consistent student experience as teachers transition and avoids the pitfalls of commercial websites delivering instruction to students. They aren’t all Kahn Academy. A sturdy curriculum and materials cost money. That expense is a pittance compared to the professional respect it shows current teachers and the promise it projects to future teachers the district hopes to attract.