Voters have successfully replaced almost half of the Cumberland County Board of Education with new members, unseating three incumbents in Tuesday’s election and casting uncertainty over the board’s future direction with a major shift in membership.
All told, four of the nine school Board of Education members will be changing hands come December, when new members are sworn in. Incumbents Alicia Jones Chisolm, Donna Blackmon Vann and Nathan Warfel lost their seats to challengers Mary Hales, Jackie Warner and Terra Jordan, while incumbents Susan Williams and Deanna Turner Jones held onto their seats. Delores Bell also replaced Carrie Sutton, who did not run for reelection. The board has six district seats and three at-large seats; the at-large board members did not have an election this year.
The changes come at a time when a number of pressing issues face Cumberland County Schools, including low-performing schools, chronic absenteeism, teacher shortages and security concerns including the loss of some school resource officers.
The large member turnover came as a shock to several of the candidates who spoke with CityView. The incumbents all expressed some form of concern over the future direction of the Board of Education with the seismic shift in membership.
Chisholm, who narrowly lost her District 1 after 16 years on the board, said she felt she and her fellow board members “accomplished a lot” during her tenure. Chisholm lost by 325 votes, or 1.91 percentage points, according to uncertified election results. She expressed concern about the inexperience of new members.
“Some people who have never been on a board and don’t know how they operate with a board, they’ll find out that they tell all these lies when they run about what they’re going to do when they get there, but no one person does anything or makes any decisions by themselves,” Chisholm told CityView.
Vann, who also lost her seat on the board after nearly a decade, worried about the board’s ability to continue making progress on existing issues after the election. Vann lost by 2,077 votes, or 10.4 percentage points.
“We have really been on the rise, and I wanted to see the plan, the roadmap to success,” Vann told CityView. “I wanted to see that through and see whether we make the gains and we accomplish what we wanted to accomplish. We were on the road to do it. I would like to have gotten to the end.”
Several board members who spoke with CityView expressed surprise that Warfel had lost to Jordan. Warfel lost by 2,616 votes, or 11.75 percentage points. He has been on the board since 2020.
Speaking to CityView Wednesday, Warfel said he “didn’t understand the strategy employed by my opposition before Election Day,” and described Jordan as a “great political strategist.” He also argued his chance of success in getting reelected was limited based on time and resources he could commit to the campaign because of his family and professional commitments. He is an assistant public defender with Cumberland County Public Defender Office.
“I’m concerned about the direction in which CCS is headed,” Warfel said. “I wish those opposed to what they believed my candidacy represented would have made attempts to discuss their concerns with me about the assumptions underlying their perceptions before labeling me an opponent to their cause. I love the community I’ve grown up in, that my children have grown up in, that I’ve served now for 11 years and the results in this election won’t affect my commitment to this community into the foreseeable future.”
Warfel declined to elaborate on specific assumptions he said were made about his candidacy. Responding to Warfel’s claims, Jordan told CityView she has “no idea what he’s talking about.”
“My philosophy going into this race was that I was going to run my race the way that I thought that was necessary for me to be successful during this time,” Jordan said. “So I did not allow any distractions to allow me to run my race.”
New members plan ahead
Meanwhile, newcomers to the Board of Education told CityView it’s time for a change — and voters have agreed with them. Warner, who beat out incumbent Vann in District 4, said her focus will be on addressing low-performance in schools, chronic absenteeism and advocating for the concerns of students and parents.
“I ran on wanting to be a voice for those that don’t appear to have a voice,” Warner said. “I’m just concerned about the low performance, especially the continual low performance in that district of some of the schools … So what are we doing to stop that progression?”
Warner said she is also passionate about pursuing solutions to chronic absenteeism, which she believes can have a number of contributing factors. Warner is a former mayor of Hope Mills and a retired principal at Cumberland County Schools.
“With high absenteeism, you’ve got to look at what might be the underlying problem,” Warner said. “And a lot of times there’s something about the school. It might be that they don’t feel like they’re cared for, they might not be happy there, it might be bullying, but there’s a lot of that within District 4, too, of students that aren’t going to school.”
Hales, who beat out incumbent Chisolm in District 1, said she wants to focus on improving the county’s low-performing schools, addressing barriers to learning such as hunger and homelessness, increasing student attendance, securing adequate funding and focusing on teacher retention. Hales is a retired principal and worked for Cumberland County Schools for 31 years.
“One of the things that I really, really want to try and get our policymakers — which are the school board members — to try and just think about [is] effective strategies, period,” Hales said. “Especially strategies for enhancing our low performing schools, which we don’t want that number to increase anymore, and encouraging them hopefully to address both the academic and non-academic barriers.”
Jordan, an educator at Fort Liberty, said her focus is on fostering open communication between the school board and the community, supporting student well-being programs and ensuring a safe learning environment
“I want to be, as I said, that voice that connects our school board to the community,” Jordan said. “And just let them know that I thank them from the bottom of my heart, the people that came out and supported me, as I continue this journey. My job is to make sure that I be a light that is set forth for our school board to make sure that we are doing what we need to do and how we need to do it.”
Bell, who retired in 2022 after almost 22 years working for Cumberland County Schools, told CityView she needed to learn more about the roles and responsibilities of Board of Education members before her term starts.
“I know I have a lot to learn,” Bell said. “I got to learn the policies. I have to learn what my job is, what it consists of, what I can and can’t do, or what I can and can’t say. So I got a lot of reading ahead of me before the swearing in, and I’m ready to get started.”
The next chapter
Williams, who managed to fend off challenger Tracy Pelt, said she is looking forward to another term on the board. Her focus will be on school safety, ensuring quality education and supporting teacher recruitment and retention to bolster student performance outcomes.
“So we obviously want to continue to work on getting our children in a place that we feel they’re learning at the level they’re supposed to be learning on,” Williams told CityView. “And we know we’ve made some progress, but we’re not where we want to be. … So I think if we invest in the people who are leading and teaching and guiding our children every day, that all of those things can happen.”
Jones did not respond to requests for comment from CityView.
For the incumbents who lost, the future is uncertain — though not without hope.
“I’m thankful to the relationships I’ve made through my service as a representative of CCS and I hope Dr. Jordan will be at least as passionate in her term as I was in mine,” Warfel said.
Vann concurred.
“It is what it is,” she said. “And all we can do is pray and hope that the decisions they make will be for the good of the school system, the boys and girls and everybody else involved in the school system.”