Why I Support Millicent Rogers for School Board

I’m honored to have so many Durham moms supporting my campaign. This week I’m sharing a message from Elizabeth Simpson, a mom and civil rights lawyer.

It is easy for me to support Millicent Rogers for the School Board this May. It is easy because I know that we share values on two core issues:

1. We agree that while public schools are imperfect, they are the foundation of a functioning democracy and they must be defended and transformed — not scapegoated for society’s ills.
2. We believe that collective action by regular people is the only viable route to achieve transformational public education — not performative or rhetorical leadership by individuals.

I know that Millicent and I share these values because we have worked together, closely, over the course of several years. First, we were co-volunteers with the People’s Alliance, and later, we shared leadership as co-presidents. We cooperated with each other, and with many other people, across race, class, age, and political opinion. We navigated countless thorny questions facing Durham. In the process, while sharing burritos, we became friends.

Millicent and I both have children, born in 2011, attending Durham Public Schools. Our kids are different genders and different races. Some challenges they share. Other challenges are distinct.

Both of our kids will be asked to come into adulthood in a state that is wracked by the poison of white supremacy, a country that is struggling to recover from a deadly pandemic, and a world that is facing an existential climate crisis. We know that they will need strong academic and analytic skills to face these challenges. But we also know that they are still kids, and they need a safe and trauma-informed place to grow, play, make friends, and make mistakes without lifelong consequences.

The job we ask of our School Board members is a challenging one. Our leaders are navigating many tough issues in a climate that is often hostile and adversarial. No one person can fix our problems.

Millicent is the candidate I trust to take on school leadership because she knows that she has to build trust with others and form a village to get things done, just like she did when she became a single parent. Together, we can defend our public schools from attack, and together, we can transform them into what our kids truly deserve.