From left: Gail Summerskill, Rhonda Lennon, Robin Bradford

Davidson residents will have a chance over the next two Thursday nights to learn more about candidates for the Charlotte Mecklenburg School Board District 1 seat.  Three candidates – Gail Summerskill, Rhonda Lennon and Robin Bradford – are seeking to represent District 1, which includes Davidson. We have introductions to the trio and also the schedule of candidate forums to be held Oct. 15 and Oct. 22 in Davidson.

MEET THE CANDIDATES

District 1 will have a new representative following Election Day, set for Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009.  Incumbent Larry Gauvreau of Huntersville, who has filled the seat since 2001, is not seeking reelection.  Three women are vying to take over and all three are expected at upcoming candidate forums in Davidson (see below for details).  Here’s a brief introduction to each of them:

Gail Summerskill

You may have noticed the signs for Gail Summerskill plastered across the front of the Cabinets & Design store on North Main Street near Carolina Cones.  That’s because the kitchen design company is owned by Dr. Summerskill’s husband, Robert Ditch.

“He’s my David Axelrod,” Dr. Summerskill affectionately noted, referring to the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Gail Summerskill

Dr. Summerskill hails from Charlotte’s Highland Creek neighborhood, comes from a family of educators and currently teaches writing at Strayer University.  Now that her three children are in college, the youngest two having graduated from North Meck, Dr. Summerskill is seeking a seat on the school board.

She would bring to the board 35 years of experience in education, having taught at the middle, high school and college level, including a recent stint teaching ninth and tenth graders at Cannon School, and also serving as an administrator for various writing programs.  She is interested in encouraging the use of technology, from Prometheum Boards in the classroom to web groups and more.

“I’m a huge advocate of technology,” she said.  “It can be used to encourage critical thinking and teamwork and collaboration.”

She would also like to promote a more positive message about CMS schools.

“I don’t think we do a good job promoting the positives,” she said.  “I have been visiting a lot of schools lately and every school I’ve been in has had students involved in incredible things.  We need to honor the students and the teachers.”

The campaign trail has brought Dr. Summerskill to Davidson to meet principals and also to attend Saturday’s Davidson College football team.

“I think Davidson is a wonderful, wonderful place,” she said.

Her endorsements include the Char Meck Association of Educators.

Rhonda Lennon

Back in 2003, when Rhonda Lennon was the parent of a 6th grader at Huntersville Elementary, the overcrowding got to be just too much.

“My son was in as many trailers as classrooms,” she said.

Ms. Lennon decided to take action, and formed FUME, which stands for Families United for north Mecklenburg Education.

“I didn’t want to be negative,” she explained.  “This was formed as a positive voice for change.”

Rhonda Lennon

And FUME brought about changes, successfully lobbying for more school buildings, including Bailey Middle and J.V. Washam Elementary in Cornelius.  Ms. Lennon recalls working with Davidson Mayor John Woods (then a town board member) to push for the Bailey Middle building, and learning that the Davidson community was strongly opposed to folding its small but successful IB Middle school into the proposed middle school on Bailey Road (which opened in the fall of 2006).

“I learned then how important the IB Middle is to Davidson,” she said.

Neither Ms. Lennon’s oldest child, the sixth-grader who spurred her launching FUME, nor her two youngest were able to attend some of the brand new schools that FUME pushed to build, but Ms. Lennon is pleased to see the completed buildings anyway.  And now she would like to use the knowledge gained from FUME as a school board member.

She said she would encourage further decentralization, beyond the recent establishment of learning communities throughout CMS.

“I’d really like to decentralize to the point of selling that seven-story building downtown,” she said, referring to the CMS administrative headquarters in Charlotte.  She added that the district would be better served by giving more authority and budget control to the learning community “area superintendents.”

Ms. Lennon expressed concern about the competition from charter schools and private schools and thinks CMS could limit the loss of students by establishing a school boundaries policy that encourages neighborhood schools and reduces busing.

“We need a stable student assignment plan that doesn’t change according to the policital whims of the school board,” she said.

This is Ms. Lennon’s second run for a school board seat.  She narrowly lost in 2005 to incumbent Larry Gauvreau, who made his mark as a strident critic of  his fellow board members.

“I’m an optimist; I want to work with everybody,” she said. “I have no preconceived notions.”

Besides her work in FUME, Ms. Lennon is a Registered Nurse at Presbyterian Hospital and a realtor at Keller Williams Realty in Cornelius.

Her endorsements include Cornelius Mayor Jeff Tarte, Cornelius Town Commissioner Jim Bensman, and CMS School Board At-Large Member Kay McGarry.

Robin Bradford

Robin Bradford

Running on a slogan of “Integrity – Accountability – Equity” Ms. Bradford is  resident of Huntersville.  She and her husband, Keith, have daughters at both ends of the CMS spectrum – their eldest is a CMS grad now in college and their youngest started a pre-K program this fall.

Ms. Bradford is a retired director at Fidelity Investments.  She currently volunteers at her church and also in a job readiness program for the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Department.  Ms. Bradford could not be reached by DavidsonNews, but her website is available at www.vote4robinbradford.org.

Her endorsements include NC Senator Malcolm Graham, Cornelius Town Commissioner Thurman Ross, and the Char-Meck Black Political Caucus.

CANDIDATE FORUM SCHEDULE

The three District 1 candidates, Robin Bradford, Rhonda Lennon and Gail Summerskill are expected to attend forums on the following dates:

• Thursday, Oct. 15, 7:30-9 p.m., Davidson Town Hall, sponsored by The Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce .
• Thursday, Oct. 22, 7 p.m., St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, sponsored by  DavidsonNews.net.

District one includes the towns of Davidson, Cornelius, Huntersville and parts of north Charlotte.  School board members serve four year terms.