Welcome to the open thread for tonight's Orange County Board of Education candidate forum. Two incumbents and two challengers are running for three seats.

You can observe the forum at http://orangepolitics.org/elections-2012/forums/county-school-board.

We hope you'll use this open thread to post your thoughts and reactions. Also, if you want to propose additional discussion topics, you can reach the editors during the forum via Twitter, Facebook, and the contact page. The forum moderator will have final say in question selection.

Learn more about this event and suggest forum questions/topics at http://orangepolitics.org/2012/03/op-candidate-forums-2012.

The editors of OrangePolitics are excited to announce our live online candidate forums for the upcoming Orange County Board of Education general election and Orange County Board of Commissioners Democratic primary election.

I attended the NHA/Lee Scholars Information Session this evening and I must say, I'm Impressed. As the discussion commenced and powerpoint presentation was shown it became very clear to me that the Chapel Hill/Carrboro City Schools were doing, by charter school criteria, a wonderful job of teaching our children.

The "moral focus" of the teaching process reminded me very much of Positive Behavior Support (PBS) in the middle schools (my children attend Smith. 

 It was said that the middle school students (they aren't quite there yet but Greensboro is) are taught geometry and algebra in the 8th grade to prepare them for high school. CHCCS has that as a requirement for 8th grade and some students begin algebra 1 in the 7th grade. 

The candidate filing period for the May 8 primary elections begins today at noon. In Orange County, 10 seats in various state and county races are up for grabs.

The Conference on Race, Class, Gender, and Ethnicity would like to announce its 16^th Annual Conference, “Waking Up from the American Dream: The Sober Reality of Class in America.” On Saturday, February 25th, 2012, academics, community activists, practitioners, and students will come together at the UNC School of Law Rotunda to contribute to the rejuvenation of a discussion of class and inequality. We hope to encourage a heterodox approach grounded in the intersection of an honest exploration of class and the realities of racial, feminist, ethnic, and queer identities and the law. For more information and to register please visit our website, http://studentorgs.law.unc.edu/crcge/conferences/2012/default.aspx.

I have "School Board 101" tomorrow and Friday, so if I were smart, I'd probably wait to write this after being trained in how to avoid saying something stupid.  But that's never quite been my style, so here goes.  As always, note that I speak here for myself only, not the CHCCS board in this.