Demetria Carter

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Demetria Carter

Republican Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

March 5, 2024

Education

Bachelor's

George Mason University, 1979

Law

Duke University School of Law, 1982

Personal

Birthplace

District of Columbia

Religion

Christian

Profession

Retired

Demetria Carter (Republican Party) ran for election to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners to represent District 6 in North Carolina. She lost in the Republican primary on March 5, 2024.

Biography

Demetria Carter was born in Washington, D.C.. She earned a bachelor's degree from George Mason University in 1979 and a law degree from the Duke University School of Law in 1982. Carter has been affiliated with the Guilford County GOP, Greater Greensboro Republican Women's Club, and North Carolina Frederick Douglass Foundation.

Elections

2024

See also: Municipal elections in Guilford County, North Carolina (2024)

General election

General election for Guilford County Board of Commissioners District 6

Incumbent Brandon Gray-Hill defeated Maritza Gomez in the general election for Guilford County Board of Commissioners District 6 on November 5, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Brandon Gray-Hill (D)	56.9	20,284
		Maritza Gomez (R)	43.1	15,338

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 35,622
= 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.

Democratic primary election

The Democratic primary election was canceled. Incumbent Brandon Gray-Hill advanced from the Democratic primary for Guilford County Board of Commissioners District 6.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Guilford County Board of Commissioners District 6

Maritza Gomez defeated Demetria Carter in the Republican primary for Guilford County Board of Commissioners District 6 on March 5, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Maritza Gomez	54.7	2,788
		Demetria Carter	45.3	2,308

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 5,096
= 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.

Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Carter in this election.

2022

See also: Guilford County Schools, North Carolina, elections (2022)

General election

General election for Guilford County Schools, At-large

Alan Sherouse defeated Demetria Carter in the general election for Guilford County Schools, At-large on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Alan Sherouse (D)	55.2	101,288
		Demetria Carter (R)	44.8	82,354

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 183,642
= 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.

Democratic primary election

The Democratic primary election was canceled. Alan Sherouse advanced from the Democratic primary for Guilford County Schools, At-large.

Republican primary election

The Republican primary election was canceled. Demetria Carter advanced from the Republican primary for Guilford County Schools, At-large.

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Demetria Carter did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

2022

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

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I retired towards the end of 2019 having served for forty (40) plus years in the Federal Government and for companies with contracted with the Federal Government. I have held several positions, including those as an attorney, to include managing attorneys, a procurement analyst, to include manager of numerous procurement analysts, and a contracts' specialist, to including contracting officer. I have been a small business owner. I currently live in High Point, NC, and, before I started to run for GC Board of Education, I was active as a political analyst for the Guilford County GOP and chair of the legislative committee for the Greater Greensboro Republican Women's Club. I am a member of the Frederick Douglass Foundation. I was graduated from George Mason University, Annandale, VA, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration and I was graduated from Duke University School of Law. I have family in several states, including Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina. I am the eldest of three siblings.

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?

• When elected to the GC BOE, I will advance the rights of parents to be involved in their child's education. Parents have the right to know what their children are being taught and are being exposed to, as well as the right to object to content and manner of instruction.
• When elected to the GC BOE, I will fight to ensure our schools educate and provide opportunities and resources to and for students to excel academically! Every child--regardless of race or color--can learn!
• When elected to the GC BOE, I will ensure our schools are neutral places of learning and are safe places of learning! All politics must be eliminated from our schools. Teachers must not be allowed to tell a child she/he is essentially worthless due to the color of their skin. Moreover, no teacher is qualified to discuss gender identity or gender-affirming care with any student.ey are not qualified to

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I am passionate about:

(i) Ensuring parents are actively involved in schools and collaborating with teachers and administrators to ensure excellent student performance and outcomes.

(ii) Ensuring critical race theory is neither taught directly nor embedded within lesson plans and provided to students.

(iii) Ensuring gender identity and transgenderism are never topics of discussion between a teacher, a principal, and a student.

(iv) Taking a closer look at discipline and violence in Guilford County schools to ensure that the bases of new policies fairly address issues that arise and that ensure everyone--administrators, staff, teachers, and students--are all safe from harm, and

(v) Privacy and safety for female students.

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

The influencers in my life have been numerous. Here are the top three:

First, my father, who would not let me quit law school. He taught me that the best things in life may be the hardest to achieve!

Second, my mother, who told me I was not a failure when life got hard. I discovered that reliance on myself rather than others paid huge dividends in the long run!

Third, Dr. Thomas Sowell, who explained why things aren't always fair or equitable for some people, who also taught me that fair does not mean equal, and who also taught me that there are explanations for everything if one is willing to look for them, to think more deeply than anyone expects about what one finds, and to accept some universal truths about people, society, and what it means to be an American.

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

I would recommend everyone read any one of Dr. Thomas Sowell's ten or more books.

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

Ethical behavior, honesty, and trustworthiness.

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

All of them!

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

I believe the core responsibilities for someone in this office is to question everything that may have an effect on student learning, performance, safety, and security. Then decide wisely on behalf of constituents.

What legacy would you like to leave?

A good one!

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

It was either the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the riots that followed, or the assassination of President John Kennedy, Jr., and the aftermath of that assassination.

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

I do not remember my very first job. What I do remember is that when I was 16, I asked my father to drive me to an interview that I had arranged with a local dry cleaner. He did, and needless to say, I did not get the job because I did not have the experience for the position.

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

Confidence!

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

There are several primary responsibilities of a school board/school board member:

1. Implement policies and procedures of the State of North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction, and interface with the NC State Board of Education on behalf of Guilford County.

2. Collaborate with parents and the community to ensure excellent student academic outcomes.

3. Establish, review, refine, or repeal educational policies and procedures to be implemented within the Guilford County system of schools for the operation and success of the students, teachers, and administrators.

4. Hire and manage the work and performance of the Superintendent for the Guilford County school system and ensure that sufficient and appropriate resources are provided to the Superintendent for the successful operation of the Guilford County system of schools.

5. Ensure appropriate performance assessments and data are collected and measured to determine the success or failure of educational programs and policies, as well as determining the appropriate responses to those assessments.

Who are your constituents?

The taxpayers of Guilford County, NC, in the form of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, and other family members. I see students as my constituents, who want the best education Guilford County can and should provide. I also see members of the Guilford County business community as my constituents, who want and need to hire employees who are educated and upstanding citizens. These are the bankers, the hospitals, the grocery stores, and the restaurants. They are all my constituents!

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

As a Board member, there is only one way I can support the diverse needs of students, faculty, staff, and the community, and that is to ensure that the educational system works to better all who study within in it, who work within it, and who has to rely on the products the system produces. A school has only one purpose--to educate. First and foremost, it must do that. If it doesn't, it has failed to live up to its purpose and, therefore, it might as well be closed. When that happens, no one's needs are being met!

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

I hope to build relationships with differing groups in two ways:

1. By serving the parents and students to the best of my ability to ensure all students excel academically, and

2. By ensuring that all curricula, lesson plans, teaching methods and training, external and internal reading material all work toward ensuring all students excel academically.

In this regard, I will work to ensure that all other distractions, such as politics and other activist pursuits, such as, CRT, SEL, and particular social ideologies, such as socialism, gender identity, transgenderism, and pornography, are eliminated from schools.

If I am successful at this, the relationships will build in time.

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?

No, that is not my belief. I think the aim of every school is to intentionally recruit teachers who are absolutely the best at teaching in their field of choice! This goes for the school district's administrators, too.

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

The issues that get in the way of quality education are myriad, and will include one or more of the following:

1. Lack of qualified and innovative teachers, to include unqualified teachers teaching a class for which they are unprepared to teach, to include the hiring of inexperienced teachers, and also to include the hiring of individuals who are activists disguised as teachers.

2. Discipline issues that result in fear by teachers of students and violence by students upon other students. There are no real consequences to bad and criminal behavior in schools.

3. Unacceptable and poor teaching materials and books. Other than setting standards for courses by the NC Department of Public Instruction, each district determines a course curriculum, the lesson plans, and reading material. There may or may not be consistency among all classes for a particular subject, and teachers are free to download material from the internet if it supports their particular politics or ideology. None of this is rigorously tested or applied.

4. Unmotivated students.

I would hope to address each of these issues through discussions with leading experts, parents, and teachers. New or revised Board policies would have to follow, with implementation of such policies by the Superintendent.

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

Good teaching consists of five parts

One part "dedication to education" as shown through preparation, passion, and commitment.
One part "patience with each student" who may need to go slower to learn, but who does not give up.
One part "authoritarian to push and prod students" who may want to give up.
One part "innovator who knows that there are many different ways to teach," and
One part "caring person" who praises students when they finally get it!

The students and other teachers will measure these parts through end-of-year grading/testing assessments. That teacher will be recognized and praised for their great teaching skills.

From my part, I will eliminate all obstacles that prevent good teachers from becoming great teachers.

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?

Guilford County, NC schools' system already has a CTE program that appears to work well. There may be a need to expand to more fields, but that remains to be seen.

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

Funding does not appear to be a problem for Guilford County schools. At present, funds come from the Federal and state levels, from grants, and from local bond referenda. Nevertheless, I would require the preparation of funding plans/budgets on at least a two-year cycle to ensure that funds remain constant and available, and all contingencies can be met. There should be a master maintenance and improvement plan that is budgeted annually.

What principles drive your policies for safety in schools?

My five principles for safety in schools are:

1. Schools must protect all within its walls: students, teachers, administrators, staff, and visitors, from within and from without.
.
2. No teacher must ever fear violence from a student.

3. No student must ever fear violence from another student.

4. All students' privacy needs to be protected.

5. Incorrigible students must not remain in schools.

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

I support obtaining mental health care for students who need it. What I do not support is for a school itself to be responsible for obtaining and treating students with such needs in schools. This is not the purpose of schools. If anything, parents need to be notified and should be encouraged to seek emotional support for their child at mental health care facilities within that parent's community. The same would go for faculty and staff.

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

Technology plays an important role in education. But as we have seen from school closures and virtual learning situations, as a result of the decisions made during the pandemic, technology cannot take the place of one-on-one teacher/student in-person lessons. Technology is a tool that can be used effectively to aid in teaching or making critical points, but not if someone or some school board is wholly unprepared for how it will be used.

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

Listen to everyone and do not "discount" anyone's opinion! Do not simply rely on only one "expert's opinion.

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

First, since I believe it important to take the school board to the community, I propose to move all general board meetings from its administrative office (with its 15-seat limit) to schools within each district on a rotating basis. Second, I will also propose that we establish a "parent/community council" that directly advises the Board on matters of concern or interest. Third, I would like to establish a "male parent/grandparent" club/hub that partners with a school and buddies with young male students starting in elementary school who may need a strong male presence to mentor and guide.

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

2024 Elections

What's on the ballot? U.S. President U.S. Congress U.S. Congress special elections State executives State legislatures State courts Ballot measures Municipal government School boards Election analysis hub

Government

Who represents me? U.S. Congress State executives State legislators State courts Ballot measures Municipal government School boards

Newsletters

The Daily Brew The Weekly Brew The Ballot Bulletin Checks and Balances Economy and Society Hall Pass Number of the Day Robe & Gavel

External links

Search Google News for this topic