Help us improve in just 2 minutes—share your thoughts in our reader survey.
Cheryl Caulfield
From Ballotpedia
This page was last updated during the official's most recent election or appointment. Please contact us with any updates.
Tenure
2022 - Present
Term ends
2026
Years in position
2
Predecessor
Cheryl Caulfield is a member of the Wake County Public School System in North Carolina, representing District 1. She assumed office on December 6, 2022. Her current term ends in 2026.
Caulfield ran for election to the Wake County Public School System to represent District 1 in North Carolina. She won in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Caulfield completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Cheryl Caulfield earned a bachelor's degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1988. Her career experience includes working in property management.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: Wake County Public School System, North Carolina, elections (2022)
General election
General election for Wake County Public School System, District 1
Cheryl Caulfield defeated Ben Clapsaddle in the general election for Wake County Public School System, District 1 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Cheryl Caulfield (Nonpartisan)  | 58.5 | 24,776 |
 | Ben Clapsaddle (Nonpartisan) | 40.7 | 17,240 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.8 | 334 | ||
| Total votes: 42,350 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Cheryl Caulfield completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Caulfield's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
My husband and I moved to Wake Forest 16 years ago to start our family. We love our charming town feel, and we have watched our community grow in leaps and bounds, and have always tried to be a part of that growth, advocating for the community. I am a mom of two teen boys in Wake County Public Schools currently attending high school in Wake Forest. I have been very involved in many activities at their schools since pre-school. I have volunteered many hours working with students, teachers, PTA, and many school events, including sports and clubs, such as school plays and football. I also volunteered with a pilot program started at another local elementary school for Every Tray Counts, a wonderful program to teach the children about composting and more eco-friendly lunches. I earned my degree from F.I.T. and went on to Business Management at SUNY Farmingdale. I worked as a Senior Underwriter for over 16 years where I trained staff, opened a new branch, and reformed another. When my children were born I switched to property management allowing me the flexible schedule to raise my two active boys. While it allowed me more free time to volunteer at the schools, I also got to see the struggles our teachers and students face. I care about the real issues, and getting to the source of the problem and resolutions. I see the need to make changes, remove the politics from the classroom, and get back to the basics.
- Teachers need our support. That starts with understanding the real issues, what they need and how to get it. First, we need to listen to our teachers. We pay $100,000’s to consultants, yet teachers are our front-line, and they know what works in the classroom. Their #1 problem is no support from admin., and they feel their hands are tied. Another struggle they have is discipline in the classroom. This interrupts class and makes for bad learning environment, and work setting. They do not have the resources they need (did you know they are limited on copies they can make for class? They also pay for their supplies. They wear too many hats, and need more resources in the classroom.
- Transparent curriculum, along with parent involvement create a team effort to work together to help our children reach their potential. If we have a transparent curriculum, the teachers and parents can have a clear understanding of what our children need, and what is expected. WCPSS needs to focus on our learning loss recovery, and get back to basics; remove the politics in the classroom, and focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic.
- Fiscal responsibility is imperative. We budget for million of dollars on textbooks, but our children do not have textbooks. While our superintendent is the highest paid in the nation, our teachers sit at the low end of the national pay. We have a large amount of administrators making six figures, and programs that are unclear if they have resulted in any student improvement. We need to go through the budget line by line, and remove ineffective items. There are questions that need to be answered, and if hands are tied work more closely with legislators or the source that ties them.
School safety is vital. If students, staff and teachers do not feel safe in school, then WCPSS will not have an effective learning environment. This extends to bullying, and the mental health crisis we have right now. Schools need proper resources, such as, SRO’s in all schools (currently elementary schools do not have SRO’s), and more effective lockdown drills (WCPSS only has one per year, regardless if missing points in the drill), every SRO should have an entry key as part of their uniform (currently supervisors hold the keys, and limited supply, and in case of an emergency they may not be able to assist another school, or might experience a delay or covering a sick fellow SRO). Our school should also have very clear, and transparent policies. Our bullying policy states “zero tolerance,” but what does that mean? Bullying is increasing, consequences are vague, left to school discretions, and inconsistent. This is not just students, teachers have been intimidated, and harmed. Clear discipline policies should be consistent through the county, with accountability, and more resources available. Our budget needs to allow for more mental health resources, especially at this time. WCPSS received $400 million in Covid Relief Funds. Perhaps we put those unspent funds to good use, especially with the high amount of teen depression, and bullying we are enduring right now.
Local school board should represent their community visions and values through policies, curriculum, and goals, to meet our students educational needs. Their main objectives should be the best outcome for our students. WCPSS is boasting a 90% graduation rate, however, our Math1 high school math students have 79% not-proficient scores. Our 3rd grade reading is 50% not-proficient. Our students are not failing, we are failing them, by not addressing such a learning loss, and advancing them to the next level, without the skills they need, and without the fundamental building blocks. Our students and teachers are being ignored. As a school board member I will work hard to create solid policies and programs that best support our students, and teachers. I will advocate to remove ineffective spending, failing curriculum, to get back to basics, remove politics out of the classroom, remediate our current learning loss, and provide our teachers with the resources they need to have a successful classroom.
Parents, teachers, staff and community members are my constituents.
Wake County boasts a 90% graduation rate, however we have scores of 79% not-proficient in Math1 (HS Math), 50% not-proficient in 3rd grade Reading, which is a pivotal point where children progress from learning how to read, to reading to learn. They are missing fundamentals building blocks, yet our students are passed through to the next level without the full comprehension, and retention needed to advance. By passing them on without the proper remediation, we are failing our students. As the grades progress the struggles increase, causing strains for our students, and teachers. We need to provide more tutoring resources, and aides to assist the teachers in class, and close those gaps. Mental health counselors can also help with these struggles. We are burning out our students, and our teachers. Let's get the politics out of the classroom, let's get back to basics, and focus on reading, writing and arithmetics.
WCPSS receives $2.1 billion dollars for education. We also received $400 million in Covid Relief Funds, which has not all been applied towards all the struggles we had from the pandemic, and extended school closures. We budget for millions in textbooks, yet our students do not have textbooks. We have extended programs that have utilized millions in our budget, yet it is not clear if they have any improvement on academic success. For schools to be properly funded we should start first with what, and how, our funds are being allocated, and if those funds have been effective toward our goals. Then, we should break down which items need to be reevaluated and removed, where we need more resources, like higher teacher salaries, resources, tutoring, mental health counselors and programs. Better checks and balance would be very beneficial to WCPSS's needs. WCPSS can also work close with legislation to make adjustments where it is needed. Constantly spending more money, does not ensure better results. Making sure we are spending effectively is a better option, and then work from there to expand on what we need.
If we do not feel safe in our classrooms we cannot have a good learning environment. Please see my full response above for more details on school safety.
We budget millions of dollars for textbooks. I am hearing complaints from parents, students and teachers across the board that there is too much dependency on the Chromebook's, and that they all would like to see more books, and paper back in the classrooms. Although technology can be very helpful, I believe we need to have a better balance. Special Education students also tend to struggle more with too much screen time, and would benefit from less computer lessons, and more engagement in class.
Parent involvement can be a key component in the success of their child. The teachers I have spoken with across our district want parents to be more involved. They need the help, especially now, and can really make a difference for that child, both in and out of the classroom. Parents have expressed the lack of textbooks also make it harder to work side by side with a struggling student, and most times it is just unclear what they need to do. If teachers work with students in class, and parents work from the back end with transparency, and good communication, they can close gaps, and provide for that team environment. After all, we should all have the same goal, helping our students reach their potential. This will require input from all parties.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
|
Candidate Wake County Public School System, District 1 |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 11, 2022
