Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools' parents share perspectives on equity, privilege

Most people value diversity, want equity and long for inclusion, community historian Danita Mason-Hogans said. 

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board of Education member Vickie Feaster Fornville learned those values when she was in elementary school. Her teachers’ efforts to encourage everybody to play together came long before Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was coined as an acronym.

Today, “equity” is a big word in CHCCS — which is widely considered one of the best districts in the state — Feaster Fornville said. While “DEI” doesn’t appear in CHCCS School Board policy or the district’s 2024-25 budget, the words “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion” separately appear dozens of times. 

At the same time, CHCCS has yet to close a racial performance gap,  Mason-Hogans, the president of Bridging the Gap, said. When the district desegregated in 1966, and the all-Black Lincoln High School was closed, students lost 75 percent of their teachers and school leadership. 

When the word “racial” is added to a discussion about equity, many people in the CHCCS community become uncomfortable, Feaster Fornville said. Many CHCCS parents from underrepresented communities said they sometimes feel like the district, and more privileged community members, do not prioritizes their voices. 

“Almost 60 percent of people value diversity, equity and inclusion, until it comes to having to give up something," Mason-Hogans said.

DEI within CHCCS

Rodney Trice, the deputy superintendent for teaching & learning, systemic equity and engagement, leads the district’s Equity and Engagement office. The office includes district staff members and school-level equity coaches. But, the district cut the position of one Equity Specialist for Instructional Equity, along 23 other positions, as part of a plan to correct a nearly $5 million budget deficit. 

According to the district website, office programs like the Blue Ribbon Mentor-Advocate Program aim to improve the achievement of students of color. The program offers mentorship, tutoring and college preparation for students. 

However, some CHCCS parents like Kenyatta Clark feel the district isn’t doing enough to address racial inequity, and what they are doing can feel performative. Even though DEI certifications and trainings are available, parents and students of color still are not treated well and often experience microaggressions in the classroom, she said. 

Sonya Brown, another CHCCS parent, said her daughter’s ideas have been shut down when she tried to share them with her fifth-grade class, but when a white student shares an idea, they are praised for it. She said this makes her daughter think her opinion does not matter and that there’s no point in trying to share anything if nobody will listen. 

Some parents also said there are barriers for underrepresented communities to engage with district activities and meetings.

School improvement meetings are often held during the day, which makes it difficult for working parents to attend and allows stay-at-home parents to become leaders in those groups, CHCCS parent Tiffany Palmer-Lytle, said. 

“I feel like a lot of things are done that keep minority parents out of the loop,” she said. 

Attitudes around equity 

It’s impossible to understand inequities within CHCCS without knowing the community history, Mason-Hogans said. Families who move to Chapel Hill for careers and opportunities have stepped over Black families who have lived in the town for generations, she said. 

“You have these privileged parents set up in these school board meetings talking about how much money they contribute with their tax dollars to the school system as a justification for their children getting more than these local Black kids, whose families actually built the town and have poured way more resources into the community,” she said. 

CHCCS parent Lori Carter said many parents in the district think about the resources available as a pie, which leads to competition to get their kids the best educational experience available. Jill Simon, another CHCCS parent, said more parents across the district should be concerned about what’s best for all students, not just what will get their child into prestigious universities.

“That 10 percent [of families] who already get 96 percent of what the district has to offer are trying to get 110 percent out of it, whereas the kids who might get 30 percent or 50 percent, their voices aren’t loud enough,” Carter said. 

Carter, who was the Parent Teacher Association president of McDougle Middle School during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, said the organization has eliminated mandatory dues to turn the organization from a fundraising body into a community space, she said.

Classroom teachers can also foster community engagement, Eugenia Floyd, a fourth grade teacher at Mary Scroggs Elementary School said. She said she considers her students’ cultural differences when teaching, and that parents and families can be an important partner in that process. 

Floyd added that the district held an equity symposium last year, where teachers shared lesson plans and ideas about incorporating equity into the classroom.

“It definitely was not performative,” she said. “This is who they are, and they’re just showing other people that they too can make these moves in their classroom as well.” 

At the beginning of June, the district approved the switch to a block schedule starting in the 2025-26 school year. But, this decision did not come without tension, Palmer-Lytle said. She said that one group of parents cited worries about Advanced Placement class schedules and exams, while another found the switch practical partly because a semester-based schedule prepares students for college. 

The majority of parents in support of the switch were Black, and the majority of parents opposed to the switch were white, Palmer-Lytle said.  Mason-Hogans said the school board and the district, in this instance, acknowledged the needs of the greater CHCCS community, not just people with privilege. 

“If I want my child to be successful, I [should] also think that the child that sits next to my child should be successful too,” Floyd said. 

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@DTHCityState | city@dailytarheel.com

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