Becky Lew-Hobbs

Becky Lew-Hobbs ran for election to the Wake County Public School System to represent District 4 in North Carolina. She lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.

Lew-Hobbs completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Becky Lew-Hobbs earned a bachelor's degree from NC State University in 1992. Her career experience includes working in business.^[1]

Elections

2022

General election

General election for Wake County Public School System, District 4

Incumbent Tara Waters defeated Becky Lew-Hobbs, Michael T. Williams, and Daniel Grant-King in the general election for Wake County Public School System, District 4 on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Tara Waters (Nonpartisan)	63.3	21,055
		Becky Lew-Hobbs (Nonpartisan)	21.2	7,039
	Submit photo	Michael T. Williams (Nonpartisan)	9.8	3,258
	Submit photo	Daniel Grant-King (Nonpartisan)	5.1	1,691
		Other/Write-in votes	0.7	231

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 33,274
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Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

Becky Lew-Hobbs completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Lew-Hobbs' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Becky Lew-Hobbs graduated from Wake County Public Schools and received her Bachelor of Science from NC State University. She is a businesswoman with over 20 years of contract management experience in the US and Canada. As Senior Operations Manager, Becky develops and implements corporate policies and procedures as well as manages multimillion dollar construction projects.

Becky is a long-time resident of District 4 in Wake County, where her three children attend school. She has been an active member of the PTA serving several years as both Secretary and Vice President as well as school volunteer.

When the governor closed schools, all her children started struggling with basic subjects. She was frustrated that the Board sat in utter silence as her kids received limited educational assistance during “remote learning”. When school finally went back in person, several times they were denied access to their education, and received no support. Also, as a parent she was no longer allowed on campus to volunteer.

Becky will bring quality education back to WCPSS, support parental involvement and ensure fiscal responsibility of WCPSS.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

Quality Education: All children deserve access to a quality education, focusing on academics - reading, writing, history, math, and science.
Parental Rights and Involvement: Parents are essential to their child’s education journey.
Fiscal Transparency: The goal of managing the multibillion dollar budget must be to provide a quality education to all Wake County students.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

The current board has been in place for a decade. They have disregarded the best interests of students, have demonstrated contempt for their constituents, & have burdened teachers to do things beyond the scope of providing a quality education.

• Quality Education-The board has sacrificed providing quality education; instead, they focus on political & social driven agendas.
• Board Transparency -The board does not listen to or respond to parents and the community. Emails are ignored & they do not respond to public comments.
• Learning Loss-For more than 2 yrs parents have voiced concerns over learning loss. Yet the board has mocked & ignored parents. Instead, the board chose to follow the guidance of the NCAE calling learning loss a “false construct”.
• Supporting Teachers -Teachers are frustrated because they are asked to do more than teach. When teachers must spend time issuing surveys, gathering medical & psychological data they have less time to focus on teaching.
• Board Integrity -The board has been shown to be negligent when they attempted to appoint someone to the open D-4 position who did not reside in the district.

All students deserve a quality, unbiased education to give them the educational foundation for their future careers. As your school board representative, I will advocate for all children, implement sound curriculum choices, listen to parents, & be fiscally responsible so that we can bring quality education back to all students of Wake County.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

My parents have been examples of working together to achieve their goals, always be honest and shown true dedication and love for each other. As a naval officer, my father served our country and protected our freedom. Many times, this meant he was deployed for many months. At that time email and video calls were not available and the ability to phone home was rarely allowed. My mother demonstrated strength and tenacity keeping the home running with four children and no family nearby to assist. She was involved with our education and made sure we had what we needed. They taught me to serve others, work hard, be a person of honesty and integrity and stressed the importance of a good education is the foundation to a successful career.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

The Declaration of Independence, The US Constitution and Lincoln on Leadership

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Be a servant leader. A person of honesty and integrity that is dedicated to serving those she represents in the community.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

A person of honesty and integrity; dedicated to serving and providing fair, equitable leadership in the community.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

To provide quality, unbiased education to all children.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

Although my first formal job at the age of 12 was delivering papers, I did many things in my pre-teen years: from making and selling jewelry, landscaping and more. Then in high school, I was a lab technician at NCSU. By hard work, planning and saving, I was able to work my way through college without incurring any debt.

This taught me the value of planning for your goals and responsible budgeting. I have acquired the skills needed as a board member to responsibly manage the budget for WCPSS

What is something that has been a struggle in your life?

We lost several children due to miscarriage. Losing a child is devastating and when we finally had our rainbow baby, we treasured him on a whole new level. Children are our future and to lose one fractures that future. This is why the education of our children is so important. All children deserve the opportunity for quality education; to give them a foundation to succeed in their chosen career.

What is the primary job of a school board member in your view?

The Board of Education is the governing body that supervises all matters pertaining to the Public School System. The Board is to:

1. Provide the leadership to school system
2. Provide quality, unbiased education to all students
3. Hire the Superintendent and evaluate his or her effectiveness in providing students a quality, unbiased education.
4. Manage the operating and the capital expenditure budgets.
5. Plan for future growth needs of the school system
6. Advocate for all students at other government level in order provide them a quality, unbiased education

7. Create and implement policies for students and staff.

Who are your constituents?

Residents of District 4.

District 4 begins on the east side in downtown Raleigh. It goes east into Knightdale. On the north side it goes up Capital Blvd bordering on Spring Forest Road. On the south side it is bordered by Walnut Creek.

How would you support the diverse needs of your district’s students, faculty, staff, and community?

By focusing on providing a quality education to all students in Wake County that focuses on academics – reading, writing, history, science, and math.

For the past few years, the board has kept children out of the classroom and provided limited education instruction and guidance. These board actions adversely affected the education of many students including those with special needs children, children of color, children of dual working families and more. These actions also affected teachers by placing unnecessary burdens on them beyond the scope of teaching.

How will you build relationships with members of the broader community? Which groups, organizations, stakeholders will you specifically target?

Student success is best when the parent and teacher support each other. Parental involvement must be encouraged and protected as it is the # 1 indicator of student success.

Also, not all schools have a PTA or effective support groups so I would encourage an “adopt a school” program. When the community is involved in the wellbeing of their local school, school needs can be met much faster. There are 198 schools in Wake County. Wake County has many, many more faith and civic organizations that can “adopt a school” to help the school with volunteer needs, tutoring needs, teacher needs, and more. These relationships develop a sense of ownership and responsibility within the community.

To give an example, for many years our local outreach supported a local middle school by helping provide meals during teacher training, providing school supplies, setting up classrooms, helping with teacher parent events and more. We wrote letters of encouragement and were available during times of stress. The school soon realized they could call us when there were specific needs, so their needs were met much faster than waiting for requests within the system.

Do you believe it is important to intentionally recruit with the aim of diversifying the district’s faculty, staff, and administration? If so, what would be your policy to achieve this?

For WCPSS to provide quality education that students deserve, quality teachers and an excellent support staff are required. Diversity in background and thought process are important.

The Office of Equity Affairs was to improve this. It has spent millions of dollars since its inception. During that time student scores have declined and there has been no change in the diversity of teachers and support staff. We need to evaluate their expected deliverables, hold the OEA accountable for these deliverables or direct the resources to provide more equitable staffing.

What issues get in the way of quality education? How would you address these obstacles?

Quality education focuses on academics – reading, writing, math, science, history as well as performing and visual arts. But the current board has selected politically and socially driven curriculum choices that have caused a decline in the comprehension of these basic subjects as shown in the declining test scores. Curriculum choices need to be free from political and social agendas.

Furthermore, the board kept students outside of the classrooms much longer than necessary, adversely affecting students’ education. And during this time, the board was condescending to parents who voiced concerns over the loss of learning and denied learning loss was an issue. Studies have shown that children are as much as 3 years behind due to being kept out of the classroom.

As you board member, I will advocate for our students by seeking unbiased curriculum, advocate for students needs at the general assembly and NCDPI and keep students learning in the classroom.

What constitutes good teaching? How will you measure this? How will you support advanced teaching approaches?

A “good” teacher connects with students, is creative, engaging and can identify a student’s individual needs. When elected, I will meet with classroom teachers and get input on what they need for success and support.

In what areas would you like to expand curriculum? For example, do you see a need for advanced technical training or apprenticeships? What sort of innovative programming would you advance if given the opportunity?

In high school, one of my teachers understood my interests and found the opportunity for me to work in a research lab through high school. This gave me the insight to explore career options and consider pathways I did not know about before this. More students should have this opportunity to explore careers before incurring the expenses involved with a university degree.

There are many well-paying careers that do not require university degree. For example, many trades such as auto mechanics and electricians or technology/ IT careers can earn $70,000 or more.
We need to help students understand that college is not the only option. We can start this exposure in elementary and middle schools by adding electives for students to explore career options.

By middle and high school, students many times become disengaged because they don’t see themselves going to college. They do not know about other career options such as trade programs, technical programs, and apprenticeships.

Access to these programs is currently inconsistent across all the high schools in Wake County. These programs need to be expanded upon at each school. And students desiring specific programs should be allowed to transfer to the high school with the program of their interest.

What strategies or plans would you advance to ensure the schools are properly funded?

WCPSS manages over $3 billion budget with an average budget per pupil of $12,808 (A). For less than this, there are several quality private schools a student could attend. The problem is not the funding of publics schools; the problem is budget management – or rather budget mismanagement by the current school board.

Here are just a few areas of the board’s history of budget mismanagement and misdirection and shows why an independent line-item audit from an outside source needs to be performed.

1) The current board has requested another bond in the amounted $530 million plus interest. This is on top of the $1.358 billion plus interest in bonds already incurred in the past 10 years. To continue to request funds and incurring large amounts of debt will only inhibit future growth and ability of WCPSS to provide quality education to the students of Wake County.
2) Much of the millions of dollars in ESSER funds have not been used. These funds are supposed to be used to address learning loss.
3) In the past 20 years, the number of non-teaching positions have almost doubled. But these positions have not been evaluated for effectiveness. All positions should be evaluated as to how it contributes to providing the students of Wake County a quality education. For example, WCPSS currently has over 110 positions that pay over $100K totaling over $13 million. High level, highly paid positions should have specific deliverables that must be met in order to justify the expenditure of these positions.

4) Textbooks this year are budgeted $5 million dollars and have been in the budget for many years. But textbooks have not been used in the classroom for 10 years (as my children can attest too). Yet when asked what these funds are used for the system does not produce the information.

What principles drive your policies for safety in schools?

Teachers are concerned about their physical safety from unruly students. We need to improve discipline measures and hold students accountable for their actions yet seek to keep students in school. Students must learn to take responsibility for their actions.

Teachers throughout WCPSS are also concerned with classroom safety. With 198 schools designed over several decades (most have dozens and dozens of entry points) and almost 1,000 temporary classrooms there are many issues regarding our student’s classroom safety. Furthermore, Wake County has 12 police agencies, which gives rise to confusion during a state of emergency as there is no clear direction of who is in charge.

Currently WCPSS has very few School Resource Officers. Recently, the current school board refused to apply for a NCDPI funded grant that could have provided School Resource Officers for many, many additional schools.

How might you support the mental health needs of students/faculty/staff?

The extended school closures authorized by the school board prolonged student isolation. This has escalated the mental health crisis of students. Furthermore, teachers are under a lot of stress as the administration is asking them to do so much more than teach. The administration is requiring teachers to perform social surveys, administer medical advice and more. Doing so much work that is beyond the scope of teaching places undue burdens on our teachers causing stress. We need school counselors to assist in identifying the support needs of students and staff. These counselors should work with students and with input from the family, communicate with teachers how best to serve the child.

What role do you imagine technology playing in (and outside) the classroom in the future? How would you prepare the district for this?

Students should be exposed to technology. But WCPSS should not rely on technology to teach.

At the elementary level, children need to practice writing, learn how to handle books, explore science in the physical world, etc. Tangible interaction is critical in the foundations of learning. At this level, technology should only be used to assist in standardized testing, not to watch video lessons or “teach”.

In middle schools, students should have more exposure to the use of technology, keyboarding, programs, etc. But learning should still focus on live instruction of core subjects (English, Math, Science, etc.) and not the use of video lessons or “teach”.

In high school, students can have more exposure to how technology can enhance their education. But the reliance on online teaching and videos should still be minimalized. Teaching should remain in person and interactive with students. At this level, students should be exposed to the various technological careers from help desk technician, programmer, computer architects, graphics design and more.

To prepare for this more CTE should be in place. Work with local tech companies such as RedHat, IBM, Epic Games and more to encourage guest teachers that can come to teach for a semester to give students exposure to the ever-developing world of technology.

What are your views on how to address schooling during pandemic times?

WCPSS shut down schools longer than necessary, keeping students isolated for prolonged periods. This isolation and forced remote learning escalated the mental health crisis and caused severe learning loss. As parents and caregivers came to the board expressing concerns over learning loss, the school board supported the NCAE calling learning loss a “false construct”. The board also publicly mocked parents who addressed learning loss.

Local private schools, Union County schools in NC and schools in Florida went back to in person learning months before WCPSS did. These schools managed the pandemic well and minimized learning loss as a result.

Moving forward, we need to identify individual student needs regarding learning loss and provide targeted tutoring to help bring these kids up to grade level

What will you do to build a relationship with parents in the district? What plans do you have to be inclusive of parental involvement?

The current board has alienated parents and caregivers. They have not responded to parents and caregivers. Furthermore, the board has sometimes been derogatory in addressing concerns that do not match their political agendas. To further this, the board has supported policies and actions of the superintendent, district and area superintendents and some principals that limit and exclude parental and caregiver involvement.

Parents/ caregivers are key to the success of a student in their educational journey. To encourage and protect this involvement:
1) Review Policies - Some policies are vague and leave much to administration discretion. Review the language to ensure that parents and caregivers rights to be involved are not encroached upon.
2) Post lesson plans – Post lesson plans in advance and in a consistent manner among all teachers. Parents and caregivers who understand what is being taught in advance can collaborate with teachers and better support the education of their children. By understanding the topics in advance, parents and caregivers will have the tools to interact and engage their children at home on the relevant topics.

3) Textbooks – My children have been in WCPSS since 2012, and they have never had a textbook. Yet we have $5 million budgeted for textbooks. Textbooks should be brought back, particularly for elementary and middle school students. This gives children something tangible to refer to as well as gives parents and caregivers more tools to collaborate with teachers on the subject matter at home.

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Footnotes

↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 15, 2022

[1] Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 15, 2022

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Becky Lew-Hobbs

Contents

Biography

Elections

2022

General election

General election for Wake County Public School System, District 4

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also

External links

Footnotes

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