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Name: Lea Grover
What office are you seeking? District 47 School Board Member
What is your political party? n/a
What is your current age? 40
Occupation and employer: Freelance Writer, self-employed
What offices, if any, have you previously held? n/a
City: Cary
Campaign Website:
Education: BA in Public Administration
Community Involvement: I’m a member of the RAINN Speakers Bureau, Girl Scout troop leader, and frequent volunteer with my family’s schools and congregation.
Marital status/Immediate family: I am widowed, and have three children
Questions:
What are your views of recent teacher union contract negotiations, both the process and the outcome?
I have concerns that not everyone involved was acting in good faith, and I have concerns regarding the reduction in the number of paid positions in the D47 schools, but if the board and the teacher’s union reached an agreement they were both satisfied with, then the outcome is acceptable to me.
Are you satisfied with how math is taught in the district?
I am satisfied with how math is taught, but I am not satisfied with the metrics imposed on the students and teachers by which this is measured. I think that teachers need more freedom to work with individual students to meet their needs rather than teaching to the standardized tests. I am deeply concerned about how the teachers are being asked to eliminated nuance from their methods of grading and student collaboration, and I would like to see them more empowered to think outside of the standards in order to help each child succeed.
How can the district improve reading and English proficiency and state test scores?
Providing books that actually interest the children is the most important thing. You never know what it will be that a child connects with when it comes to reading, and limiting those options by restricting access to certain subjects or genres can severely limit a child from finding something they actually want to read. Some kids want to read non-fiction, some want to read graphic novels, some want to read lists of trivia and fun facts. Honestly, to encourage English proficiency and reading, it doesn’t much matter *what* a child reads, it matters much more that they’re reading anything at all. I would like to see English teachers given the freedom to provide a wider variety of reading materials to the kids in order to encourage them to make those personal connections. As far as the state test scores are concerned, I think these should not have nearly the influence that they do in terms of funding our schools and compensating our teachers. I think that as the rates of ADHD and Autism diagnoses rise and thus the rate of children with accommodations for IEPs and 504s rises with it, the amount of arguably meaningful information we actually get from these tests declines. I think that if we focus on helping the children learn to love (or at least no actively dislike) reading and test-taking, the scores will rise regardless of whether instruction is targeted to those tests. We need to remember that children are not machines we can pump information into and expect uniform results to come out, they are individual people who will process what they learn in their own ways, and just as Common Core math embraces that by teaching many different models to understand a problem and find a solution, English learning needs to be viewed as a similar spectrum of models.
If you have children, do they or did they attend public school and was that for all of their K-12 school years?
Yes, with the exception of my twins’ Kindergarten year. At the time we lived in Chicago, and they attended the same private Kindergarten where they went to preschool.
What do you see as the school district’s role in deciding what materials should be available in the library and in curricula?
The school board should not be a political body, and it should not be the role of the school board to decide what literature is available to the children based on broad ideological impulses. The role of the school board is not to micro-manage schools or teachers, it is to establish guiding principles by which the district should be run. As a writer and a reader, I am vehemently opposed to the blanket ban of books based on the identities of their characters or authors, and I trust teachers and librarians to maintain collections of books that are age-appropriate and that are connected to the fundamentals they are attempting to teach; things like point-of-view narration, present- or past-tense, connections to historical events the children are studying, poetry, plays, or mythology. The only books that should be excluded from school libraries are those that are frankly a waste of school funds to purchase as students would have no use for them, namely books written for a level of reading comprehension unlikely to be encountered by the students (an unabridged copy of “War and Peace” would likely serve no purpose in a K-5 elementary school, nor would a textbook on quantum computing). But even on this front, I would prefer that the school board yield to school librarians who actually know their students and those students’ needs on a personal level. If a D47 school librarian had a student they believed would benefit from reading several thousand pages of Tolstoy, I have no objection to encouraging that student to do so.
Most of local residents' property taxes go to their school districts. Are taxes paid to your school district too high? What would you do to protect the interests of taxpayers?
The proportion of our taxes that are directed to District 47 has gone down every year for nearly a decade, but the total amount of taxes have gone up as a result of the increasing assessments of the area’s homes. There is nothing a school board can do, nor SHOULD a school board do, to reduce the value of the homes within the district. It’s a double-edged sword when your home’s value increases, because of course this increases your equity and therefore your wealth, but when taxation is based on that increasing value you have to make the decision for yourself as a homeowner and community member if you are being priced out of your community. I do not think the amount of our tax dollars that go to the schools are too high, but I do believe the rate at which our homes’ assessments have increased is troubling. That said, there is little a school board member can do to influence this issue, aside from making sure that they oversee the annual budget of the district with an eye towards adjusting its tax burden as the assessments change.
Most of the COVID relief money from the federal government is coming to an end. What spending adjustments does your school district need to make to address that?
There is a tremendous amount of federal funding at risk of leaving the district, and this is deeply concerning. But I do not yet have all the information I would require to determine what adjustments each school needs to make. Without actual amounts in terms of dollars, and without a real expectation of what is likely to happen over the four years of this school board term, it is impossible to foresee those needs. That said, the biggest adjustment I would like to see is pursuing grants to move the schools to solar energy and reduce the cost of providing power to the schools, which would help tremendously in reducing the operational costs of our buildings.
Should Title IX cover sexual orientation or gender identity? What are your views on the use of locker rooms and bathrooms by transgender students and their participating in sports?
For nearly fifteen years I have worked for non-profits (RAINN, World Without Exploitation, The Voices and Faces Project) who support survivors of sexual violence and human trafficking. Title IX has been one of the most vital tools we have had in supporting trafficked minors and minor victims of sexual abuse. And in that time I have learned that sexual orientation and gender identity are a major indicator of children likely to be harmed. Children perceived to be LGBTQ, whether or not they identify that way themselves, are victimized at a much greater rate than the general population. My view on the use of locker rooms and bathrooms by these students is that what the student and their teachers believe will be safest for them is what is right. I think of students like Nex Benedict, a non-binary student who was made to use a bathroom they did not feel was safe, and was beaten to death last year in that bathroom. There have many similar incidents in recent years, and my primary interest as a parent and as an advocate for survivors of gender-based violence is that fewer children die. As far as the issue of participating in sports, I do not see an issue with permitting trans students to play on a team with which they identify. If they engage in good sportsmanship, if they participate in their team’s activities and support their teammates, and if they maintain their academic standings, I don’t see how it makes any difference whether their gender is a subject of public scrutiny. This is particularly true in an elementary and middle school environment where sports should be about fun and camaraderie, not elite competition.
What is your stance on ICE agents accessing school grounds, and what policies would you advocate for regarding their presence on school property?
No adult should be given access to a child without the permission of that child’s legal guardians, period. The only time LEOs should be present on an elementary or middle school campus is in the capacity of maintaining the safety of the students and faculty.
What are the top three issues that the school district is facing right now?
Funding is a tremendous issue, and with the uncertainty caused by the changes directed by the Federal government, this issue is exacerbated greatly. Many of the schools in our district are aging and require upkeep, and this alone puts a huge strain on the budget.
The next issue is the quality of the education the children receive. As testing and instruction standards continue to change, the ability of teachers to provide the kind of quality education we all value as members of the D47 community is impacted. I would like to see that teachers are not limited from teaching by political directives, but are instead given the freedom to make the most of their limited tools by tailoring their instruction to their students’ needs.
The third issue is bullying. As so much of the kids’ lives moves online and onto their phones, the model by which teachers and staff must address bullying has to change. Our children are experiencing a massive mental health crisis, with suicide and gun violence as the leading cause of death for children under 17 in the US. Bullying plays a massive role in this, both when it comes to increasing the rates of suicide and increasing the rate of school shooting. If our schools, where children spend the majority of their days, do not address these issues, children will continue to suffer.
What is your position on allowing students to use cell phones during school hours?
I think students should not be using cell phones during school hours.
Do you think cell phone policies should allow exceptions for emergencies or specific educational purposes? If so, how would these exceptions be defined?
I do think cell phone policies should allow exceptions for emergencies. Broadly, cell phones can be a critical tool for students with many disabilities. A phone that can help a student with limited hearing translate voice-to-text is an invaluable tool. Translation apps for non-English-speaking students, timers and reminders for students with learning disabilities, and therapeutic tools for managing emotional outbursts for students with social-emotional differences can also be incredibly helpful. As far as these specific educational purposes, these should be handled on an individual basis and should be included in a student’s IEP or 504. Additionally, there are times when using phones should be allowed for the general student population. For instance, many museums offer additional information to visitors though apps and websites accessed through a phone, and this would be a valuable resource to the kids. But I think that every school has a unique student culture, and that it should be primarily up to the school administration and faculty to determine whether their students’ use of phones for specific educational events or purposes is warranted.
What steps would you take to address concerns about cyberbullying and inappropriate content access through student cell phones?
This is a difficult question, as the goalposts are always moving. Just when adults get the hang of new technologies and apps, the kids start finding new ways to get around supervision. The biggest thing the schools can do is to trust the students. Currently the model is that if a teacher doesn’t actively see it, it didn’t happen. This compounds the harm done to the victim in these instances, and empowers their bullies. The biggest change that needs to be made is that students stepping forward need to be believed more readily, and consequences levied against their bullies without adult eye-witness support. I understand that this is a tremendous challenge, but the schools are not a court of law where we presume innocence until guilt is proven. School administrators need to adapt their zero-tolerance policy to include reasonable accusation, character assessments by the teachers of both accused and accusing students, and the concerns of parents. But most importantly, more parent education is required for this to be effective. More needs to be done by school administrators and faculty to reach out to parents about persistent bullying issues, so that parents can be informed and empowered to talk to their children at home about problems growing at the schools. The way information about bullying is siloed by schools, whether to protect their own reputation or to deflect the nature of accusations of bullying is unacceptable. If a school is having a problem with bullying, the parents need to know.
Should students be able to use AI in schoolwork?
No.
What is your plan for making district financial reports, including budgets and expenditures, publicly available and easy to understand?
These are already available and as easy to understand as such documents can be on the district website. As far as making them easier to understand, I would like to have the budget committee add a simple synopsis to any changing items, so that community members don’t have to go digging between different years’ documentation to make comparisons.
How would you involve parents and community members in the decision-making process for curriculum or policy changes?
Voting for school board is the biggest element of community involvement in these processes. But on a day-to-day basis, inviting parents to attend meetings and actually speak about their concerns is the best way to understand their needs.
What is your position on banning books in school libraries or classrooms, and how do you define the criteria for such decisions?
Banning books is never a good idea. Firstly, we live in a digital world where, regardless of what books are on offer in the school library, they can be borrowed from another library for free using free apps. They can be downloaded, pirated, or sought out at the public library. Banning a book simply creates more curiosity and enthusiasm for it, and honestly encourages more students to seek it out. That said, encouraging students to illicitly seek out content online sets a dangerous precedent.
More importantly, there are very few books in the world that can cause children genuine harm. Reading helps children develop empathy and curiosity. Reading a book that makes a child feel seen or understood can be a lifeline when they are bullied or isolated based on identity or circumstances. A child with an incarcerated parent might feel ashamed or afraid, but reading a book like, “Far Apart, Close in Heart,” can help them understand how common their experience and feelings are, and help their classmates relate to them. We live in a world full of terrible and complex issues that kids may have to deal with regardless of our efforts to protect them; the opioid epidemic, poverty, disease, bigotry of all sorts. Children’s books have always dealt with these subject, from “The Velveteen Rabbit,” about losses associated with measles, to “Johnny Tremain,” about injury and disability during the Revolutionary War, to “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” about the displacement of children during the Blitz. We as adults might not always have the answers to complicated questions like, “Why do children get cancer?” A book like “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” won’t answer that question, but it will help a child in a position to ask that question know that they are not alone in their fears or their struggles. Books about difficult subjects, including gender identity, racism, and sexism, help our kids understand the world they are growing up in without having to be exposed to these problems directly. Reading a novel about a trans teenager won’t change that child’s gender identity anymore than reading a book about Temple Grandin would make a neurotypical child autistic, but reading about people who are different helps prevent bullying, and encourages a love of learning.
As far as the criteria for decisions regarding what is appropriate in a school library or classroom, I believe it should be up to the teachers who know their classes and their school population, and who know what needs these students have that can be addressed through access to these books, and not the role of the school board to make that determination for them.
How would you balance maintaining appropriate class sizes with the current teacher staffing levels?
The current actions of the board include redrawing the school boundaries, and this is an essential part of maintaining student-to-teacher ratios.
Do you believe the district is allocating enough resources toward hiring and supporting teachers, and if not, what changes would you make?
I think there are areas where the district is going above and beyond, and there are areas where the district is lacking. In particular, special education has always suffered from understaffing. As a board member, I would like to see what inter-organizational partnerships might be possible between non-profits and local colleges to help encourage teacher retention and recruitment, and view the problem from a wider lens.
How will you make sure you are accessible to your constituents?
I will attend public board meetings, respond to emails from my constituents, and attend school and community events whenever possible to make sure I have opportunities to speak directly to any D47 community member impacted by the decisions of the board.