With less than a week until Election Day, The Daily Tar Heel spoke with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education candidates to discuss major issues facing the board. Election Day is Nov. 5.
Candidate name: Ignacio Tzoumas
Age: 39
Daily Tar Heel: What are the biggest issues facing the school system?
Tzoumas: I would say dealing with the disproportionate disciplinary issues we have right now because they affect the achievement gap. Currently there is a major bias when it comes to disciplinary issues when it comes to minorities and if we want to make any headway with the achievement gap we need to address this.
The second issue would be the infrastructure. Were going through a major change right now and we need to modernize and restructure the whole system so it can handle the growth that is coming for the next five years.
The third major issue would be dealing with personal interaction and unburdening teachers with administrative and compliance issues.
DTH: You have a lot of experience with budgets, but little experience dealing with education. How will you handle major educational issues facing the district, like closing the achievement gap?
Tzoumas: What I’ve been doing ever since I did my election is meeting with all the community thought leaders on education because I think that in order to really address this we need a well-rounded attack from the community as well as from the administration.
