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School Board Candidates: Jerry Hoyle

Jerry Hoyle
(I am excited about serving on the school board for 4 more years. I was a teacher at Central School for 10 years, an assistant principal for 3 years, a principal at Kings Mountain Junior High School 7 years, principal at Kings Mountain Middle school for 2 years and principal at East Elementary School for 16 years. I my career I have learned a great deal about how schools operate, how children learn, how teachers need to teach, how to motivate students to learn, how important strong dedicated child-centered staff are to learning and how parents and the community need to be involved.)
1. Why are you running for the school board?
I want to continue to use my knowledge and experiences to help our schools provide an excellent education for all our students.
2. What are the big issues the school board will face in the next four years?
(A) Improving the academic progress of our students. During my career I have seen tremendous improvements in the educational performance of our students in both our state and county. Our schools are doing a far better job of preparing our students for college, work or the military than they were just a few years ago. We have raised our CCS high school graduation rate from 71.8% to 86.6% in the past 6 years. More of our students are prepared for college. Our vocational programs are preparing our students for training in many fields. We must continue to do better. Our students must become globally competitive. All of our students need an excellent education.
(B) Bringing 21st century technology to our students. We can not just teach our students what we learned. We must prepare them for their future. The world's t technology is changing fast and our children will have to be prepared to learn, live and work with technology. While it is expensive, it will be necessary to teach our students to use technology in all aspects of their lives. It will be very important that our schools make wise choices in the technology they purchase and use for instruction.
(C) Hiring great teachers and staff. Recruiting, training and retaining quality teachers, administrators, and staff is critical to having excellent schools. It will become increasingly difficult to find, hire and retain the people we need in our schools without proper financial resources. Fewer college students are going into education in North Carolina and some of our best teachers are leaving our classrooms for better pay elsewhere. Increases in pay and benefits will be needed for all our employees.
What are we doing right in Cleveland County Schools?
(A) We have an outstanding team of employees. Our administrators, teachers, assistant teachers,staffs, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and maintenance workers all work together for the benefit of our students.
(B) Our students are making good progress. Our academic scores are improving when compared to other school systems in our region and state. We have an excellent athletic program in all 4 high schools and middle schools. Our cultural arts programs are strong. Our many vocational training programs are doing well. Our dropout rate has improved greatly. Many of our graduates are continuing their education, joining the military or joining the workforce.
(C) We have great parental and community support. Parents and others are volunteering in our schools and we have strong PT O's. Many community groups work with our schools. Our Educational Foundation's scholarship program for our7 seniors is the envy of many school systems. The Early College program at the Le Grand Center was a model of cooperation with the county, CCC, and the school system.
3. What are we doing wrong?
(A) We need to find ways to motivate all of our students to work harder. We can lead our students to learning but they have to want it. We have to make them believe that they can achieve success with more education. Working with more community groups, parents, churches and civic clubs could help. Finding more mentors would also help.
(B) Our whole community needs to raise our expectations for all of our students. We need to expect more. All of our children need to graduate and take training beyond high school. We have to expect more. All children can learn. As a community we must raise our expectations. All of our community leaders need to get involved.


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