The resignation of Chuck Marsh from the Alamance-Burlington school board will set in motion a process for selecting his replacement, to serve the remainder of his term – through November 2026.
Based on the school board’s recent consideration of filling a vacancy in its membership, there should be no question that the primary choices are Corrie Shepherd, the runner-up in last fall’s school board race (she placed fifth for the four available seats); and if, for any reason, she’s not interested, then the sixth-place finisher, Peter Morcombe.
Last time there was a vacancy (a little less than two years ago), it took seven months to fill the vacancy. In April 2023, long-time school board member Patsy Simpson resigned with about a year-and-a-half remaining on her term, which was scheduled to expire in November 2024.
With much groaning and gnashing of teeth, the board couldn’t decide who should be appointed.
The runner-up from the 2022 election, the November before Simpson’s resignation, had been Seneca Rogers (who was fourth that year for three open seats); he had also been runner-up (fifth for four seats) in 2020.
But some school board members initially objected to his appointment, apparently believing his views were not consistent with the rest of the board.
There was also division over whether Rogers, who is black, should be appointed to replace Simpson, who is black. Many of his advocates made that argument, but the racial appeal, alone, was not persuasive to most board members.
In the end, seven months after Simpson’s resignation, the board voted, 5-1, in November 2023 to appoint Rogers to fill her seat for what was then the remaining year in her term.
In the interim, the board went through an application process, which drew 13 initial applicants for the seat.
Frankly, we see no need for an application process this time around, given the school board’s recent precedent for elevating the next-highest vote-getter from the most recent election.
The four winners in the 2024 election – board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves, Avery Wagoner, Seneca Rogers, and Tameka Harvey were the top four voter-getters who were thus elected, drawing between 38,430 (Ellington-Graves) and 34,292 (Harvey) votes.
The two closest runners-up were Corrie Shepherd with 30,622 votes, running 1.5 percent behind Harvey, according to final election returns, and Peter Morcombe with 29,710 votes.
Corrie Shepherd of Mebane, an accountant, is currently employed as an operations manager for the North Carolina Values Coalition. She represents someone very focused on academic performance, a targeted view historically sorely missing among school board members; it’s a bit early to assess where current members will fall on that scale.
In response to an Alamance News issues questionnaire prior to the election, Shepherd said “I believe that students are scoring lower because of a poor curriculum and are struggling to connect dots due to a lack of critical thinking skills.”
Part of the reason for that failure, she suggested in another response to that same questionnaire, is that the school board and administration are “hyper focused on money as being the only way things can improve.”
Amen, sister. That has historically been one of the greatest impediments to academic improvement.
Shepherd was also in the minority among candidates with regard to support for Opportunity Scholarships, which Raleigh legislators have enacted, in order to provide funding for school children regardless of which brick-and-mortar building they attend.
She was also among those candidates who did not believe an additional bond referendum would be required in the next four years – following the $150 million approved in 2018. Half of the current board (Ellington-Graves, Harvey, and Rogers) said in response to that same 2024 question that another referendum would be needed within four years.
Her accounting background would also be a plus on a board that too often fails to do much critical thinking about expenses.
We’ve heard via the grapevine that Shepherd might not be eager to be a lone voice in the wilderness on some of these issues. But it’s a voice well worth hearing, and one with which a substantial portion of the electorate voiced support.
And, who knows, but what her arguments on any particular issue(s) might persuade colleagues who might not otherwise entertain such ideas.
In any event, we believe her strong fifth-place finish entitles her to a seat on the school board, certainly on a par with Rogers’ selection under similar circumstances two years ago. In fact, it would certainly be appropriate for him to be the school board member advocating for her selection.
A runner-up choice to the runner-up would be Peter Morcombe, the sixth-place finisher in last year’s election, who was one of the most knowledgeable people who ran for school board in 2024.
Morcombe has spent a lifetime advocating for public charter schools and expressed the belief that many of the principles that have made those schools viable and successful need to be expanded into the school system.
Morcombe said in response to one Alamance News question that ABSS could look to charter schools as a possible model for how to improve academic performance and discipline. He insisted that ABSS schools would improve if they were “run like charter schools with most decisions being made at site level,” which he says “empowers staff and parents to be more creative.”
In either case, however, school board members need not twiddle their thumbs in a stalemate for seven months as they did in 2023. There are two former candidates who were clustered close to the 2024 winners and have clearly demonstrated support among the Alamance County electorate.
