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David Harrison
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David Harrison is an at-large representative on the Cabarrus County Schools school board in North Carolina. Harrison won re-election in the general election on November 8, 2016. He first joined the board in 2012.
Elections
2016
- See also: Cabarrus County Schools elections (2016)
Four of the seven seats on the Cabarrus County Schools school board were up for at-large general election on November 8, 2016. The seats of David Harrison, Jeff Phillips, Barry Shoemaker, and Rob Walter were up for election. All four incumbents filed for re-election and were joined by four challengers in the race: Thomas Clark, Cindy Fertenbaugh, Jeffrey King, and Keisha Villatoro. Shoemaker, Fertenbaugh, Walter, and Harrison won the seats.[1][2]
Results
| Cabarrus County Schools, At-Large General Election, 4-year terms, 2016 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Barry Shoemaker Incumbent |
16.50% | 38,336 |
| Cindy Fertenbaugh |
15.43% | 35,852 |
| Rob Walter Incumbent |
14.97% | 34,762 |
| David Harrison Incumbent |
12.91% | 29,985 |
| Thomas Clark | 12.46% | 28,947 |
| Jeff Phillips Incumbent | 12.02% | 27,916 |
| Keisha Villatoro | 8.42% | 19,557 |
| Jeffrey King | 6.60% | 15,319 |
| Write-in votes | 0.69% | 1,606 |
| Total Votes (100) | 232,280 | |
| Source: North Carolina State Board of Elections, "Official General Election Results-Cabarrus," accessed November 8, 2016 | ||
Funding
Harrison had not reported any contributions or expenditures to the Cabarrus County Board of Elections as of November 1, 2016.[3]
School board candidates in North Carolina were required to file campaign finance reports to their county's board of elections unless the candidate:
(1) Did not receive more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) in contributions, and
(2) Did not receive more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) in loans, and
(3) Did not spend more than one thousand dollars ($1,000).[4]
The third quarter campaign finance deadline was October 31, 2016, and the fourth quarter deadline was January 11, 2017.[5]
Endorsements
Harrison was endorsed by the Cabarrus County Republican Party.[6]
Campaign themes
2016
Ballotpedia survey responses
David Harrison participated in Ballotpedia's 2016 survey of school board candidates. In response to the question "What do you hope to achieve if elected to the school board?" the candidate stated on August 25, 2016:
| “ | A good education means a secure economic and social future for children! An effective board member works to ensure safe, healthy, disciplined schools, and to let teachers innovate so children can gain tomorrow’s knowledge and job skills today! Cabarrus needs to graduate 95% by 2020, be certain its math & reading programs are rigorous, challenge kids with IB, STEM, and Academy offerings, to add counselors in high-risk schools, pay & treat staff fairly, use the State’s and County’s resources wisely, manage the marvelous growth we are blessed to have, and fix problems in the schools so they operate efficiently. As a parent, a former college instructor, and PTO supporter, I will not compromise my service, honesty, independence to Cabarrus. I sincerely ask for Cabarrus once again to trust me, and give your votes to my re-election. I pledge to represent the whole County, and keep Cabarrus A Great Place to Learn, a Great Place to Teach! Please contact me at HarrisonforCabSchools@carolina.rr.com. Thank you![7][8] | ” |
Ranking the issues
The candidate was asked to rank the following issues based on how they should be prioritized by the school board, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. Each ranking could only be used once.
| Education policy |
|---|
 |
Click here to learn more about education policy in North Carolina. |
| Education on the ballot |
| Issue importance ranking | |
|---|---|
| Candidate's ranking | Issue |
| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | |
| Improving relations with teachers | |
| Expanding school choice options | |
| Improving education for special needs students | |
| Closing the achievement gap | |
| Improving post-secondary readiness | |
| Expanding arts education | |
| “ | n/a[8] | ” |
| —David Harrison (August 25, 2016) | ||
Positions on the issues
The candidate was asked to answer nine questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. The questions are highlighted in blue and followed by the candidate's responses. Some questions provided multiple choices, which are noted after those questions. The candidate was also provided space to elaborate on their answers to the multiple choice questions.
| Should new charter schools be approved in your district? (Not all school boards are empowered to approve charter schools. In those cases, the candidate was directed to answer the question as if the school board were able to do so.) |
|---|
| No. The hypothetical question is not relevant and does not apply to my district. |
| Which statement best describes the ideal relationship between the state government and the school board? The state should always defer to school board decisions, defer to school board decisions in most cases, be involved in the district routinely or only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement. |
| The state should defer to school board decisions in most cases. The question -- based on 'ideals' and what 'should' be done – really misses the point: NC is a state that historically operates from a default presumption of centralized authority. DN delegates some rights to school districts, closely monitors those privileges, which are subject at any time to retraction by the Legislature, as it deems appropriate. ‘Ideals’ about how the relationship ‘should’ be structured fail to address the fact that, in NC, autonomy and flexibility are tenuous ‘powers’ meted out by the State only in so much as the State prefers, selectively, by its own lights and determinations. (This is an objective observation, one not particularly meant in any way to impugn the NC Legislature, which I do not believe, now or previously, is prone to wholly capricious actions. Rather, this statement is a “That’s how it works in NC” clarification worth emphasis.) |
| Are standardized tests an accurate metric of student achievement? |
| No. n/a |
| What is your stance on the Common Core State Standards Initiative? |
| School boards in NC do not set these standards, which are established solely at the State level. My concerns with the “Common Core” (how to teach, not what to teach) are less pedagogical or philosophical, than logistical and financial. It is extremely disruptive and highly inefficient, so often, for non-teacher Legislators to jigger how classroom lessons ought to be taught, or constantly to tweak the desired, short-term outcomes of education. (Yet, doing so is the prerogative of any Legislature.) The results are inconsistent, unreliable, fuzzy data trends. In 2013, several hundred teachers in my county were deeply involved in how to apply the NC curriculum. Then as now, teachers need long-term stability in their methodologies to get accurate measures of how well teachers, methods and lessons – together – are helping children become productive, self-reliant citizens. The curriculum and current standards of NC are THE law of NC, and my job on my county’s school board is to follow that law, but also to urge our leaders in Raleigh to “Let Teachers Teach.” If, and at such time as the NC General Assembly next chooses to modify the how the curriculum is taught, my job then will be to lend oversight to re-implementation of that regime, and to advocate vigorously for adequate funding from the State in order to re-train our teachers on a newer version of those standards. Further, may I respectfully add, the above response is a rare, realistic, honest, and non-pandering answer to this hot topic question. [;-) |
| How should the district handle underperforming teachers? Terminate their contract before any damage is done to students, offer additional training options, put them on a probationary period while they seek to improve or set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district? |
| Put them on a probationary period while they seek to improve. Set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district. |
| Should teachers receive merit pay? |
| Yes. n/a |
| Should the state give money to private schools through a voucher system or scholarship program? |
| Yes. Some families need flexibility, given the specific needs of their child. |
| How should expulsion be used in the district? |
| Our expulsion rates have been reduced dramatically. That said, ‘sending them home’ (like the 19th century school calendar) is a holdover from a bygone era, when at least one parent was in the home to re-enforce discipline. Today, expulsion with cause (alone) becomes a social vacuum (the boredom of TV, games) that cannot adequately impress on the child the gravity of the child’s actions that warranted the removal. Like the counter-productive solitary confinement in prisons, the isolation of expulsion may render an impressionable and risk-accepting child unsupervised and only compound bad behaviors. Without positive and reflective influences, an immature or insensitive child surely cannot somehow become self-aware, certainly not enough over the expulsion period to self-correct behaviors or discern reasons and ways to amend social wrongs that lead to the expulsion. Perhaps Cabarrus can investigate expansion of in-school suspension, re-focused on active interventions that train children to recognize triggers that lead to their impulsive or harmful actions, and on how to belter control themselves in social settings. |
| What's the most important factor for success in the classroom: student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, teachers, parent involvement or school administration? |
| Parent involvement With active, collaborative support from engaged parents (and the community, at large) who ‘know what goes on' in the school, who bolster and augment teachers' work in implementation of the curriculum, great strides can be made in student achievement and success. (However, the opposite, equally is true.) |
About the district
- See also: Cabarrus County Schools, North Carolina
Cabarrus County Schools is located in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. The county seat is Concord. Cabarrus County was home to 196,762 residents between 2010 and 2015, according to the United States Census Bureau.[9] The district was the 10th-largest school district in the state in the 2013–2014 school year and served 30,088 students.[10]
Demographics
Cabarrus County underperformed in comparison to North Carolina as a whole in terms of higher education achievement from 2010 to 2014. The United States Census Bureau found that 26.2 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 27.8 percent for the state. The median household income for county residents was $53,935, compared to $46,693 for state residents. The poverty rate in the county was 12.2 percent, compared to 17.2 percent for the entire state.[9]
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Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms David Harris Cabarrus County Schools. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Elisabeth Moore, "Email conversation with Carol Soles," January 21, 2016
- ↑ North Carolina State Board of Elections, "Unofficial General Election Results-Cabarrus," accessed November 8, 2016
- ↑ Cabarrus County, "Campaign Finance Reports," accessed November 1, 2016
- ↑ General Assembly of North Carolina, "Chapter 163: Elections And Election Laws, Article 22A - Regulating Contributions and Expenditures in Political Campaigns," accessed February 11, 2016
- ↑ North Carolina State Board of Elections, "Reporting Schedules," accessed October 11, 2016
- ↑ Facebook, "2016 Cabarrus County Republican Candidates," October 11, 2016
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2016, "David Harrison's responses," August 25, 2016
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 United States Census Bureau, "Cabarrus County, North Carolina," accessed August 1, 2016
- ↑ National Center for Education Statistics, "ELSI Table Generator," accessed November 16, 2015
- ↑ North Carolina State Board of Elections, "NC Voter Statistics Results," accessed August 11, 2014
| 2016 Cabarrus County Schools Elections | |
| Election date: | November 8, 2016 |
| Candidates: | At-Large: Incumbent, David Harrison • Incumbent, Jeff Phillips • Incumbent, Barry Shoemaker • Incumbent, Rob Walter • Thomas Clark • Cindy Fertenbaugh • Jeffrey King • Keisha Villatoro |
| Important information: | What was at stake? • Additional elections on the ballot • Key deadlines |
