Interview With Sarah Absher, Forsyth County School Board Candidate, PART I
We spoke on Critical Race Theory, Gender studies, Social Emotional Learning, guns in schools, Contracting and budgets. Plus, more! This interview has been edited for length & clarity.
Video will be included in Part II, coming this Sunday — Here is Sarah’s Website: Sarah Absher Running for Forsyth County School Board, At-Large
Troy: I am here with Sarah Absher. She's a candidate running for an At-Large school board seat in Forsyth County. I do want to start off and say thank you for coming. I appreciate that. And why don't you give us a little background of yourself, maybe like your top three causes you feel are important to your campaign?
Sarah: Well, thank you, guys, everybody, for being here on a Monday night. I'm Sarah Absher, and I am running for the At-Large position, so that means the whole county can vote for me. So everybody should tell all your friends and neighbors in Forsyth County to keep going down the ballot and vote for the school board candidates. And the reason school board is so important, is that these are going to be our voters in the next ten years. The kids that are going to school, we need to teach them how to critically think. We need to teach them how amazing and important this country is. And we need to teach them how to be good citizens. We need to make sure we don't have Marxist indoctrination in our schools. It is very insidious. It is in there despite what liberals will tell you.
So my top issues are getting Marxist ideology out of school curricula, protecting students privacy, data privacy, not allowing their data to go to outside companies and holding our children to high standards so they can succeed when they graduate. Enforcing a reasonable code of conduct so we can bring respect back to our classroom so teachers will actually want to work there. And also, another very important issue is to find out where we're spending our three quarters of $1,000,000,000 because if every school got the same amount, which is about $15 million per school — I'd like to know where all that goes. And I would like to do an in-depth audit, but specifically focusing on outside vendor contracts.
Troy: On that note, what outside contracts are you referring to? What is that outside influence you're afraid of?
Sarah: So I didn’t know this until I started digging and regularly attending school board meetings. But we farm everything to outside vendors, whether it's the hiring of substitutes, whether it is the teachers who don't even get to pick what resources they use. Everything's electronic, which again, technology is part of our life. And so that is what it is. But what I'm worried about is the racket these companies operate, which are typically pretty liberal, bringing their curricula into the school. It's all online. Our children interact with these programs online. Their data is stolen and sold to third party companies. The teachers don't really have a choice. That's why if you go and look at some of these pages where our Republican teachers have asked for school supplies, it's not just pens and pencils. They’re actually asking for books, for flashcards. They're having to crowdfund actual paper materials because the school won't get that for them. And so whether it's curricula, whether it is janitorial work, whether it is substitute teachers, there's a contract for that. And so we just have vendors come in. And I think that it's not only easier to just say, oh, well, they'll take care of it, then you have less control, obviously. And also there doesn't seem to be a lot of accountability and they make these big promises. And what I've noticed is there's no following up and saying, well, you know, I see that they told us they were going to recruit X amount of substitute teachers and it looks like they didn't meet that benchmark. So maybe we should end or terminate our contract with this company. That was how the conversation should have gone when the company recruiting substitute teachers was up for renewal. Instead, the conversation went, oh, it looks like they didn't fulfill their obligation. Well, let's just give them a second chance. And that's what I'm talking about. It’s pushed off and the can is kicked down the road.
Troy: Okay. So the theme we could talk about is, do you think that it’s because schools aren’t run like a business? Should schools run like a business?
Sarah: Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you, it's really easy to spend other people's money. And so I think the county really makes up certain bonuses for salaries and then also facilities. And then, of course, we take state and federal grants, but it's still all of our money because we all know what would happen if we decided not to pay our federal or state income taxes. It would not go well for us. And so I think there's almost like a divorced sense of accountability, because it's not money directly coming out of our wallets. It doesn't feel like it's our money. So I think that’s one of the reasons. I think that also there's this idea that how you fix our failing schools is you spend more money. But as we know, look at Baltimore, look at our county in fact, we spend lots of money and our scores continue to decline.
Troy: That's a good point because in a lot of ways, the money isn't really the solution. And so in that regard, besides throwing money at it, what should partake? What is the solution?
Sarah: So as far as what I can do as a school board member, along with other conservative school board members, is we can really push during spending cycles to say, okay, not only what are these programs going to accomplish, but how are we going to hold them accountable? And what are the consequences? I mean, that seems obvious. But again, you asked, should it be run like a business? Sure. Because if you're running a business and you hire somebody to do something — I mean, if we hire somebody to clean the house and they don't wash the floors, they didn't do the job. And so why would we hire them again? And so I don't understand why there seems to be a lack of accountability.
Troy: And so would you tack that lack of accountability to just the outside contractors or would you tack it on to the principals, the teachers, and administrative staff?
Sarah: You know, I think it's a cultural thing. It's the culture. It's a culture of not having excellence. In fact, I do find it interesting at every school board meeting, the superintendent shows a video which, I don't know if you guys have had the pleasure of going to a school board meeting — they’re quite long. And, I think number one: that’s insulting to parents who work. It's always at the same time. So if you work second shift it's hard to go. But the superintendent will show a little video and basically there’s a lot of self congratulation at the school board meetings and I don't know if you guys have seen our numbers, but there's not a lot to congratulate. I don't think there should be a lot of that self-congratulation. Our numbers were performing very low compared to other counties, similar counties, counties that are not as wealthy as we are. And so do I think it's any one particular person's fault? You know, ultimately at the end of the day, the responsibility does rest on the superintendent, whether that's fair or not. The argument for paying CEOs or superintendents or principals a lot of money is, well, we need to recruit excellent candidates. Well, when those candidates do not perform in an excellent fashion and of course, we have plenty of great principals and it's a complex situation, but we do need to ask the tough questions and not just focus on what they're doing right.
Troy: Okay. So piggybacking off that, in the budget, I'm not too sure… but I'm pretty sure it's not solidified yet. But it says some North Carolina principals fear they could lose as much as $20,000 in pay instead of the raises they're supposed to receive in this new state budget. The reason why they're doing that is because they're going to do it off performance. Do you think that that's fair for a principal to be deducted pay based on how well or how bad the school is doing?
Sarah: So as far as a principal goes, yes, I do. Now, I do think it should be based on improvement. And, you know, again, this is a complicated thing. So where did you start from? What did you employ? What did you bring to the table. And what were the results? Because, again, if you're paying somebody, if the argument is, well, we're trying to recruit excellent principals, they need to come in and have good ideas. It's of course other things than school. Of course, there are going to be some areas where parental involvement is not as much. And that is a lot of it. Students who come from, as we know, Title one, schools are going to have much more challenging circumstances. Parents are in jail, parents are absent; kids are coming to school hungry. All of those challenges are going to make it more difficult to be an effective principal. But again, where did you start from? What did you implement and how did it work? Those are the questions we need to be asking. And pay should be tied to performance to a certain extent, for principals and the superintendent.
Troy: Yes, sure. So, but should that performance be proportional? Because, like you said, there are some areas and regions of schools that are socioeconomically in decline constantly. And it is kind of hard to get those parents who do work maybe two or three jobs to get involved. And I do agree that parents definitely are a huge factor in making sure that students have a successful education. So what would you say to a principal that maybe has tried everything and it's just the circumstance of the region? Are there ways for him or her to surpass those difficulties?
Sarah: Yeah. I mean, I think you should always be looking for improvement. And I guess, again, what's your definition of improvement? Is it graduation rates? Numbers can always be manipulated. So it is a very difficult thing. And I don't even know that it would be fair for one principal who had more resources to be held to the same standard, obviously as a school that possibly is working with more difficult circumstances. But I do think, again, if the justification for paying a superintendent and principals a competitive salary is because we need to recruit good candidates, well, then what makes them good candidates? So, it wouldn't be off base to say, hey, you can get a bonus, but you need to justify why you should get your bonus. Tell us what you did. Tell us what you're doing.
Troy: A certain element of attracting good candidates is pay. So say if they run the gamut in the beginning that their pay is going to be slashed or that they're not going to get pay until they reach certain benchmarks. How are you going to recruit candidates to be principals, teachers? This is not happening to teachers. But per se, if it was happening to teachers, how would you recruit? What would be the the sales pitch to get more principals into the schools? Good candidates.
Sarah: Firstly, I don't think we should cut pay at all. I'm talking about increasing; because right now we're not in a position to — I mean, we already have 200 teacher vacancies, but as far as bonuses go….. But I do think that if we want good people, we do have to pay them a competitive wage. But it's not just pay. It's also the circumstance. A lot of teachers are leaving because they dislike how they're being treated and they're not feeling supported at school by their administration. We spend like I said, three quarters of $1,000,000,000 on 79 schools. So I feel like we could get in there and figure out where we could reallocate money so we don't have to cut pay. We can just be more smart with the money we already are spending.
Troy: Sure. However, spending smartly sometimes is contracting out to cut costs. So would cutting a lot of these contractual programs add to the budget and the deficit of the budget? Or is there a smart way to cut something and keep it in house?
Sarah: Yeah, I think it has to be definitely looked at on a case by case basis. I'll tell you, the company that absolutely has to go is Panorama. They are part of the issue. So, when I say social emotional learning, that is critical race theory, critical gender theory. That is not even about money. That is about this survey company. They give the kids surveys, ask them if they think they're oppressors and they make the teachers take them. I had a teacher come to me anonymously and show me what's in those surveys. Pretty shocking. And they were then selling that data… so that pertains to other reasons other than cost. But, yeah, everything has to be a case by case basis. Which is why at school board meetings, when there's a pitch by administrators like, hey, school board, we want you to spend money on this particular thing right now, I feel like there's not a lot of information given; they'll do like a PowerPoint and not a lot of questions are asked. We need to ask questions and dig. I feel like at this point, school board meetings are just a rubber stamping exercise.
Troy: So again, no accountability. They're not actually auditing any of these things, or are just in the back room check marking it beforehand. Is that what you’re saying?
Sarah: Yeah. And once we get certain grants, they will be for like four years. And then we all know what happens when that grant money runs out. You guys know that once we get a government program started, how easy is it to get rid of it?
Troy: Very true.
Sarah: Which is why our budget keeps expanding.
Troy: So true. So on the basis of SEL. So you brought up another topic we're going to go into that a lot of schools are incorporating nationwide. They say that the program is based on themes such as respect, empathy, gratitude, kindness, honesty, courage, cooperation, perseverance and responsibility. And it says students learn how to ask for help and spot someone having a bad day. Would you say that if these themes stayed contingent with what they actually say will do, it’s a good program?
Sarah: I would say that that's a wolf in sheep's clothing because that sounds very nice, but that's not it. What they do is make it sound good. But number one: I do think we should be focusing on academics. And of course, you want every opportunity when you're working with children to teach them how to be kind, how to be respectful. Such as, raise your hand or we don't talk over the teacher. But the problem, if you look into those curricula, the number one thing they do, especially with the high school curriculum, is they talk a lot about kind of, oh, you're your own…. It seems very divisive of the family unit and that's just the curriculum that they publish. It's not Castle, it's another company. I can't remember the name right now that Castle has certified, which is one of the major SEL companies, but basically… Wayfinder (name of company) that's what it is. The curriculum starts to go into really rocky areas. And it's not just what you listed, it's goes into talking about values that should be taught at youth groups. Those are values that should be taught by the parents. And of course, one of our current board members who is an incumbent, he's running in district 1; his argument when some of the board members pushed back against SEL when the contract was being voted on was, well, some children don't have parents to teach them these values. But that's a very small percentage. And at the end of the day, it comes down to the government's responsibility to parent your child, or is it the parent's responsibility? And by the way, why are we so focused on this stuff when we can't even get our kids to read at grade level? At Cook Elementary, 5% of their children can read at grade level — 5%. And by the way, that elementary school is called the Literacy School. I don't know if they're being ironic there or not.
Troy: I know what you mean because going back to basics is a very big conservative talking point. The Minnesota's Child Protection League, a group active on conservative issues says, social emotional learning is a vehicle for critical race theory and it divides students from their parents, is emotional manipulation and the latest child indoctrination scheme. So would you fully endorse that sentiment as a whole?
Sarah: Yeah, again, we all went to school at different times. But we didn't have SEL, and, you know, we all turned out fine, right, guys?
What I don't understand is this stuff is already being taught. Adults are already teaching this. And I know we have some teachers in the room. You're going to teach children emotional control. But the problem is, when you take away a teacher's ability to discipline a child and you don't have your principal supporting you, when you have to remove a disruptive child from a classroom and you have 30 children in a classroom and no help, and then teachers are told in fact, it's just that their classroom management techniques aren't good. It's not that the kids are being bad because, you know, kids aren't bad.
Troy: They’re perfect angels.
Sarah: Right. And again, kids are going to be I mean… if somebody didn't stop me for half the stuff I did when I was a kid, though, I was a pretty good kid. But it's an adult's job to set boundaries and have appropriate discipline. And I don't understand when that became such a controversial issue. So we don't need this academic ivory tower type of people coming up with new ways to say we're going to teach kids how to be nice to each other and we're going to have expectations that they'll show respect.
Troy: You bring up a good point about parenting, because in 2017 there was a statistic I remember that was eye popping to me and I’ve said it about 1000 times. They said, about 65% of parents basically think their kid is performing at average or above average at school. So that parental disconnect, how do you close that gap? How do you make them realize, you know what, maybe your child isn't as perfect as you may think they are. Because parental involvement is probably the most important thing, because there are so many miscommunications between parents, teachers, that they start yelling at school board meetings. Do you think that those parents maybe need to be more informed or that their emotions are valid? Where is that gap?
Sarah: Yeah. So I actually think the schools do not want parents to be involved. They may say it out loud that they want parental engagement. But again, like I said, I don't know if you guys have ever been to a school board meeting or been to one lately, but they do not make it easy for parents with jobs — it's always on a Tuesday evening. If you want to go to the committee meetings, they start anywhere from 3 to 430 and the meeting always goes till 10:00 at night. And a lot of it is fluff, however, it is important to have award ceremonies at board meetings recognizing kids. But what I'm suggesting, is there may be a different time to do that because it's not fair to parents who work 40, 50, 60 hours a week who just want to get in and see what their kids are learning or see what's going on in the school and get out. And the other thing is that nothing is easy to find on the school's website. I certainly tried to find information. And you can't get an email back. I understand they're busy, but we seem to have more and more administrators and there's just no communication. They have a whole communication team, which recently they just gave them a big award and did a whole congratulatory thing for them on how well their communication is. And a lot of us in the audience were saying, oh, I beg to differ. But nobody asked us who's voting on these awards?
Troy: So, last thing about implementing (SEL) programs, because the thing that really divides people, especially parents, is critical race theory. And at its heart, the school is like I said, trying to incorporate those values. But there are people on the left that like to believe that race actually is the overriding reason why these emotional problems are happening. I'll read you a quote. It's from Dena Simmons. She's an expert in the field who works with schools on SEL and race. She says, “What's the point of teaching children about conflict resolution skills if we're not talking about the conflicts that exist because of racism or white supremacy,” she said. “SEL could be seen as white supremacy with a hug.” What do you say about that?
Sarah: I say that she's unhinged and I would be happy to debate that and have a conversation with her. But so here's the thing with critical theory, whether it's gender or race, it comes out of postmodernism, where it's a very deconstructive mentality. This is what happens when you send somebody to get a women's studies degree and then they need a job. So then they have to look at everything. So basically it's the idea that everything is a power dynamic and there are oppressors and the oppressed and you must fit into one of those categories. So there's a hierarchy of oppression, which is the most ridiculous nonsense I've ever heard in my life. Karl Marx, is an example — and actually, interesting factoid about Karl Marx, he never really had a successful job; was not really a successful human being. And his theories have been tested in many places and they were never really successful. So interestingly, his followers like that young lady right there who said that, probably never had a real job either.
Troy: She works for the SEL program.
Sara: My point exactly; never had a real job
At this point, someone in the audience interrupts and goes on a diatribe. He was going to be told to save his comments or questions for later, but Sarah responded kindly to his inquiry and let him speak. His name was written on the log sheet, but hard to recognize. It was interpreted as such: Estefan Santa Cruz.