Alamance-Burlington school board members voted swiftly this week – after 15 minutes of discussing who they intended to vote for and why – to appoint Dr. Eric Hall of Elon to serve the remaining two years of former board member Chuck Marsh’s term (see related story, this edition).
School board member Dr. Charles Parker, who ultimately made the motion appoint Hall, led the discussion by thanking the applicants for their willingness to serve, as well as community members who spoke about the vacancy earlier in the evening.
“I’d like to thank everybody, especially members of the public who contacted us – email, in person, a few phone calls – because getting input from the public is a critical part of this process,” Parker said before outlining his support for Hall.
“I know Dr. Hall professionally and have worked with him in a peripheral way in his role at Elon as the assistant provost,” said Parker. “Some of the things I like about his candidacy [are his] connections to the community in Alamance County; he has two children in elementary school. Maintaining relationships with Elon is critical in ABSS; we have programs together and having someone with the ear of folks at Elon would be really helpful.
“Dr. Hall is very careful and detail-oriented,” Parker continued. “I know in his role as assistant provost, he’s seen finances and dealt with issues of facilities – I know we talk about HVACs all the time – and personnel, at a big scale. Quantity has a quality all its own, and you change the way you’re looking at things [when you’re dealing with a] small number of things versus managing a lot over a larger area.”
School board vice chairman Dan Ingle said he, too, had been impressed by Hall, as well as two other applicants who spoke Monday night, former state representative Ricky Hurtado and Patricia Lewis, an ABSS parent and volunteer.
“I think about what [we have] been going through in the last year, and when you talk about HVACs and other things – we have a provost at Elon University, that that’s part of his job,” Ingle said. “He’s also been in the county for 25 years. He has two children in the school system; he is a problem-solver is what I’ve heard, so that’s where I’m leaning.”
On the other hand, school board member Avery Wagoner said he intended to support Lewis for the appointment. “I’ve gotten multiple letters of recommendation about this young lady, how much she serves her community and loves her community,” he said. “She’s open and varied in what she does.”
In the letter of interest she submitted for the vacancy, Lewis said she has a child enrolled at Western Middle School and oversees the school’s tennis club as a parent volunteer. She also has extensive experience as a literacy advocate in her former school system in Connecticut; worked in human resources for the city of New York and at Yale University; and holds a master’s in human resources, among other qualifications that Lewis cited in her letter.
“I will echo a lot of the same names I’ve heard: Rep. Hurtado, Mr. Hall, Ms. Lewis,” said school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves. “We’ve got really good strong candidates. The challenge is which candidate can the majority of our board elect. It’s a hard choice; they each bring their own strengths.”
Rogers and Harvey: Latinos need representation on the school board
Meanwhile, school board members Seneca Rogers and Tameka Harvey said they felt that Hurtado was the better choice and would provide needed representation for the school system’s and county’s Latino population.
“I think it is a great justice to us to have a person like Ricky Hurtado who is a former state legislator and also represents the Spanish-speaking community because we do know how that dynamic of our students and community is continuing to grow in Alamance County,” Rogers said, adding that he also shared the concerns expressed by several other candidates who have children in ABSS elementary schools. (Neither Rogers nor Hurtado have children in ABSS.)
“They are going to be involved for a while, and that is very important,” Rogers elaborated. “But we do have to think about those communities who feel like they need voices in what we’re doing as a board but also at those school levels, so I think we need to take that into account with this decision.”
For her part, Harvey said Latinos have a significant presence in her community and her children’s school but aren’t represented on the school board.
“I live in east Burlington; my kids attend Cummings High School,” Harvey elaborated. “When I go into Cummings High School, we have a huge population of Latino children. When I became a board member, one of my goals was I [wanted] to fight for our next board member to be from our Latino community because it represents what our community looks like. I think it’s needed, not just Alamance County – it’s needed across our states, our nation. Our boards need to represent what our communities look like; it’s only fair; it’s only right.”
Parker acknowledged this week that the last time the board had a vacancy – following the April 2023 resignation of former four-term incumbent Patsy Simpson – he’d suggested a “more elaborate process” by which to evaluate prospective applicants.
In 2023, Parker had suggested that the board conduct an online survey via the ABSS website, ask candidates to submit videos, and then invite them to speak at a subsequent board meeting. (Rogers was ultimately appointed in November 2023 to serve the remainder of Simpson’s term and was elected to a full, four-year term in November 2024.)
“I read a paper once that said, if everybody writes down what they’re getting in a restaurant, and they don’t show it to anybody else, they ultimately end up being happier with their food because other people [say], ‘oh, you’re getting tilapia, or whatever,’ [and] maybe they get it, as well, because of peer pressure,” Parker said Monday night.
“You don’t get a great answer as far as the food you get,” Parker said. “The chair also reminded me there are Open Meetings rules and difficulties – even if we gave the index cards [i.e., written ballots] to The Alamance News, I’m not sure that would be totally satisfactory. Not to overcomplicate things, I’m going to make a motion that we appoint Eric Hall.”
Parker’s motion was seconded by Ingle and ultimately passed 4-2 with Ellington-Graves and Wagoner voting to appoint Hall. Harvey and Rogers voted against.
No other motions to appoint Hurtado, or any other candidate, were introduced Monday night.
Hall is scheduled to be sworn into office immediately before the board’s next evening “business” meeting on Tuesday, May 27, ABSS officials confirmed for the newspaper this week.
