RUTH HARRIS FOR TRANSYLVANIA COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD
Let's Create a Brighter Future for Our Children
ABOUT RUTH HARRIS
Empowering Minds, Inspiring Futures
Preparing Students for the Future
Ruth Harris is a conservative choice for the Transylvania County School Board. As a parent of a TC schools graduate, she knows the difference a quality education can make in a child's life. Ruth is committed to ensuring that every student has access to a safe, engaging, supportive learning environment. The Artificial Intelligence-infused workplace of the future is going to be an exciting but challenging place. Whether students are bound for college or career/technical training, we must prepare them to enter this new world of work.
Experience in Education and Industry
As a former school psychologist and retired aerospace engineering manager, Ruth will bring a broad range of experience to the board. She has expertise in special education, technical training, managing projects, including those involving artificial intelligence, and extensive proposal and grant writing experience.
Active In The Commuity
Ruth retired to Pisgah Forest in 2009 with Mike, her husband of 30 years, and Matthew, her son. Since then she has been an active volunteer in the community. Among other activities, she started a chess club at Brevard High School when her son attended school there. She also acquired a $10,000 grant for the Boy Scout Troop 703 Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam project. She was a Transylvania County Economic Alliance Board member and has served in the children's ministry at Biltmore Church Brevard campus since 2011.
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Making Schools Better
Ruth has led process improvement teams in a wide range of settings including factory, office, medical clinics, county government offices, and non-profits. She believes that the best ideas for improvement come when those closest to the work, in this case, teachers, parents, and students themselves, are actively engaged in the problem solving process.
Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.
Issues
01
Preparing for the Future Workforce
Estimates are that by 2030, 70% of businesses will have integrated Artificial Intelligence(AI) in many areas of operation. New jobs will be added but many jobs will also be replaced with this technology. Our students, whether bound for college or a career and technical education program, need to be thoroughly prepared to compete in this highly competitive workforce of the future.
04
School Safety
A recent school safety assessment by an outside organization identified our TC school safety program as a model for the state. We should be proud of our School Safety Officers and all who have worked so hard to keep our students safe. We need to make sure the resources are available to fill in any school safety system gaps that may occur in the future.
02
Parent/Guardian Involvement
Ruth believes that one of the most important things we can do to improve the education of TC students is to actively engage each family in their student's education. We need to view parents/guardians as resources and find innovative ways to involve them. Schools across the country are trying new ways to engage parents beyond the traditional parent-teacher conference. TCS is moving in the right direction with their Parent Portal and newsletters but we need to do more to get parents fully engaged.
03
School Bond
The recent finger pointing on this issue is not productive. We need to take the soon to be released results of the Education Safety and Capitol Needs Assessment report and immediately put a plan together that the commisioners can take to Raleigh to get appproved for issuing the bonds. Then we make sure that project management best practices are applied to ensure these improvements get completed as quickly as possible and that we stay within the allocated budgets. Going forward we need to ensure that our TCS facilities management process includes a good plan for preventive and predictive maintenance to ensure that we protect our investment.
05
Student Mental Health
The social and economic implications of an AI economy will result in uncertainty and social upheaval. Those who weather this time well will be those who are not simply resilient but who thrive during times of adversity. We need to give our students the critical thinking, creative problem solving, and life-long learning skills that will ensure they are not anxious and disheartened by the disruptions but are excited about the opportunity for growth that it presents.
06
Teacher Shortages
Our county faces a critical challenge in recruiting and retaining quality teachers due to barriers like affordable housing, childcare, and job opportunities for spouses. To address this, we need innovative solutions, such as offering scholarships to encourage local individuals to enter the teaching profession and incentives to keep good teachers--both financial and by improving work conditions. In addition, we should make sure our teachers are trained to take advantage of all the AI tools that have been and will be coming out in the near future to assist classroom teachers. These tools will improve teacher efficiency by taking on much of the paperwork and administrative tasks teachers must do.
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