RALEIGH — At the April meeting of the N.C. State Board of Education, State Superintendent Catherine Truitt told the board her department had received around 3,500 applications for the K-12 Parent Advisory Council.
Truitt told the state board that around 80% of those applications were deemed to be incomplete, leaving a total of 693 for the selection committee to consider.
“If an application was incomplete, they were thrown out,” Truitt said. “Incomplete could range from anything from they didn’t complete all of the fields to they did not provide a reference.”
The committee will narrow that list down to around 150 candidates. After the list is down to 150, Truitt said she will sit down with the committee to decide on the final 48 advisory council positions.
The composition of the advisory council includes six parents or guardians from each of the eight educational regions across the state.
The makeup of each regional panel includes two parents from traditional public schools, one public charter school, one homeschool, and one private school.
It will also include one at-large public-school member from the largest county in each region as follows: Buncombe, Catawba, Cumberland, Guilford, Mecklenburg, New Hanover, Pitt, Wake.
The selection committee, made up of N.C. Department of Public Instruction employees, includes Karen Fairley, Lynn Barber, Rob Taylor, Trey Michael, Mary Hemphill-Joseph, Tricia Townsend, Sherry Thomas, Tabari Wallace, and David Seagal. The person cataloging the submissions is Kaya Stiff along with the help of intern Chris Stone.
James Ford asked Truitt about the status of the Parent Advisory Council and what “rubric” was being used with regard to the application selection process and about public school representation on the council.
Truitt said that once the 150 applications are decided on, they will start considering representation and “voice.”
“Do we have a qualified candidate who is a from this region who is a parent of someone with special needs, for example,” Truitt said.
