Winston-Salem/Forsyth County students are moderating a school board candidate forum Thursday.
Reynolds High School Senior Patrick Rais-Bahrami says although the district’s financial crisis unfolded last academic year, the effects of the budget cuts and layoffs are really being felt now.
“There are some classes with one teacher and up to 50 students, that there's not even enough space, enough chairs," Rais-Bahrami says.
Even though he isn’t eligible to vote in this election, he says it’s important that he and his classmates learn about their future representatives.
“All of these decisions that the elected officials make directly impact us students," Rais-Bahrami says.
There are 16 WS/FCS school board candidates on the General Election ballot, and most of them plan to attend the forum.
Tandy Adjei, a junior, says she’s interested in hearing what they have to say about school safety.
“In the news, you hear about the dangers in school all the time, and I've even been up close to fights," she says. "And it just makes me wonder, like, is there any way to improve the situations in our schools?”
Grant Cameron, another junior, says safety and the budget are his two main concerns.
“I think it'll also be interesting to see if the candidates plan to just continue what we're doing or if they have a different point of view of how to solve this," Cameron says.
All three of these students took a Civic Literacy course taught by Cristofer Wiley. He has two things he wants them to take away from moderating the forum:
“One, their government, particularly this school board, is not far removed from them, some echelon away, but that they have some agency in what happens in their own lives," Wiley says. "But second, I really, really hope that students are provided an example of how productive and even civil, political disagreements can be.”
The forum will be held at the Reynolds High School auditorium at 6 p.m. and is open to the public.