Who is Summer Nunn, District 6 CMS Board of Education candidate?
Name: Summer Nunn
School board seat you’re seeking: District 6, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
Age as of Nov. 8, 2022: 39
Campaign website: www.summernunnforschoolboard.com
Email: summer@cmsschoolboard.com
Occupation: Chief Marketing Officer
Education: UNC Chapel Hill BS in Business Administration focus in Finance minor in History, K-12 Richmond County NC Public Schools
Have you run for elected office before? (Please list previous offices sought): No
Please list your highlights of civic involvement: Voting, poll watching, volunteering and serving on corporate boards and Charlotte-based non-profits.
What qualities, skills and experiences do you think would make a good superintendent for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools?
CMS is a large organization with 181 schools, over 18,000 staff, serving over 140,000 students. We need someone who has been successful in a large organization at driving performance overall while improving staff satisfaction and capabilities. They need to be passionate, results-driven, empathetic, a strong listener, someone who seeks feedback and critique, servant leader, change agent, and experience with multiple locations or large school systems. A strong communicator and committed to the job.
CMS, along with other districts across the country and state, has lost a lot of teachers. What are your ideas to keep teachers in CMS classrooms?
Long-term a competitive salary that is a living wage. While pay matters, satisfaction is key. The NC teachers workers condition survey points to giving them more authority over non-instructional time to plan, improve parent support through better communication channels, actual enforcement of the rules of conduct, and representation through the leadership planning and strategy. Starts with listening more today.
What solutions would you offer to improve student and employee safety on CMS school campuses?
Externally we need safety officers on site and around our schools. Making sure entry points have locks and procedures for approved access. The metal and scanners are the same level we have at airports and events. Planning and training in case there was an event that should be re-evaluated post Uvalde. The next step is for more counselors and support staff to help students, but also stricter enforcement of the code of conduct and policies in place already.
How do you define CMS’ achievement gap? How can CMS bridge the achievement gap, raise test scores and get the 50 district schools off of the low-performing list?
The achievement gap starts in elementary with reading literacy and math proficiency measured at 3rd grade and system-wide we fall short at an average of 50%, but the scores between populations specifically Black and brown children are low creating a large gap in achievement. These patterns exist for high school and readiness, too. We can start to bridge the gap by going deeper with data to truly identify the issues and solutions and build plans and budget allocation beyond the basic goals.
Why should voters choose you over your opponents?
As an elementary parent, we lack representation on our board, and they are 50% of the students. Even more, a reason to choose me is I bring executive leadership and experience managing and driving performance in large organizations that we don’t have today and that opponents lack. Some of the main functions of the board are to pick a superintendent who is going to drive change and managing complex budgets for operating and capital needs. I have that experience that is missing today.
This story was originally published October 3, 2022 at 1:57 PM.
