Sherry Walker wants to be a voice for the teachers.
Raised in New Jersey and a longtime Guilford County resident since 1991, Walker said her experience working as a day care owner and a teacher within the school system has encouraged her to run for a seat on the Guilford County Board of Education. Walker is a Democratic candidate for the District 4 seat.
Linda Welborn, the Republican board member who now holds the seat, is not running for re-election.
Walker has been a teacher at Peck Elementary School since October. She declined to say in what grade or subject. State law prohibits anyone employed with the school district from serving on a school board. Should she win a seat, Walker would have to resign her current position.
“I know most people look at the school board and say, ‘I want to be a champion for the students, the children.’” Walker said. “That’s important, but I want to change the whole trajectory of the school board. Without good teachers, what do you have?”
This is Walker’s first time running for political office. She faces three other Democrats in this year’s primary election on March 3. Early voting for the primary starts February 12 and runs through February 28. The general election is November 3.
Prior to opening the day care, Walker worked within the Alamance-Burlington School System as the assistant secretary to the superintendent. Her first assignment for Guilford County Schools was at Brightwood Elementary School as an assistant for a kindergarten class. She then worked at Jesse Wharton Elementary School.
After closing the day care, Walker went back to school, got her bachelor’s degree, state teaching license, and master’s degree. She then went on to teach at Alderman Elementary as a pre-K teacher and at Sedalia Elementary as a kindergarten teacher for three years.
She said she’s been thinking about running for school board for the last five years.
“I looked at the board and did some investigating and saw that none of these people had children that went to Guilford County Schools,” she said. “So then I thought, ‘how do they know the problems that the teachers, children, and parents go through?’”
Despite Walker’s claim, current school board members Deborah Napper and Alan Sherouse have kids who attend Guilford County Schools.
But for Walker, having kids in the schools and working there is a different story.
“When you work in the schools, you see firsthand what’s going on,” she said. “At Alderman, my kids froze in the winter, and in the summer, they burned up. Those problems don’t come out of the school’s budget, it comes out of the teachers’. I want to be that voice and be that change, especially for the teachers.”
If elected, Walker said, she will advocate for teachers having one day off each week. She pointed to some charter schools, like ones in Texas that give teachers an extra day “to get the work done that they need to get done,” Walker said.
When asked how that would work logistically for parents who can’t stay at home with their kids, Walker said the ACES program, which is an after-school program run by Guilford County Schools, could fill the gap.
“I think that they have enough workers to accommodate,” Walker said.
Currently, space for students within ACES is subject to availability, according to the district. The program also does not run when school is closed due to inclement weather, state holidays, district-scheduled vacation days, all teacher workdays, and during winter and spring breaks.
Still, Walker said it’s a “win-win” situation.
“I think 90 percent of parents would say, ‘Yes. Give teachers a mental health day,’” Walker said.
Teachers are bearing a load they cannot keep up with, she said, pointing to students with disabilities being put in classrooms with other students, creating issues for teachers. She also noted how teachers often pay for things like coats for students out of their own pockets.
These things, plus a lag in teacher raises, are causing retention issues, Walker said.
And it’s not just the teachers she’s concerned about. She includes the staff from the bus drivers to the cafeteria workers to the janitors as well.
“It takes a village,” she said.
When it comes to hot-button issues like book bannings and content moderation, Walker had a vague response. For books, she said, “learning begins at home, not in the classroom.”
“When you work in the schools, you see firsthand what’s going on.”
Sherry Walker
In terms of school safety, Walker said she supports metal detectors in every school and that each person entering a school building should be buzzed in. She also supports having school resource officers in schools, but more so in middle and high schools. For many students, she said, having an officer in schools can be a good thing.
“There are a lot of schools where students don’t have a father figure in the home,” Walker said. “I think it would be helpful for little boys to see, ‘Hey, he cares about me.’”
As far as how she compares to the other candidates, Walker said she will be a strong advocate for teachers.
“We can’t just advocate for the students,” she said. “What are you advocating for students for if half the teachers are ready to go out on the picket line?”
To ensure that doesn’t happen, she’ll work to bring teacher and staff issues to the table, she said.
“If you think the school board just has to do with students,” she said. “It’s bigger than that.”