The highly contentious contest for North Carolina's top public school official has centered on the controversial subject of classroom camera requirements.
Michele Morrow, a conservative activist with a history of incendiary online comments, attended the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and has called for classroom cameras as part of her parental rights campaign. Her Democratic opponent, former superintendent of the state's third-largest school district Mo Green, opposes cameras.
The issue has helped define the starkly different candidates for North Carolina's superintendent of public instruction, who oversees public schools, a $12 billion budget, and 1.4 million students. Morrow's past support for conspiracy theories and explosive social media posts has already been revealed.
“We need video surveillance. Morrow told the “Real Talk Podcast,” a political show on law enforcement, in February that that would protect students and instructors “so that we can actually see what’s happening in the classrooms.”
She advocated for video surveillance at public schools to make them “the safest buildings in our entire state” in another interview that month. “We need metal detectors or weapons detection systems, and we need video surveillance in our schools,” she told a conservative PAC in February.
The race is just the latest public school political battleground. Republican officials and candidates at various levels of government have focused on public school classrooms, pushing to ban certain books and critical race theory, capitalizing on anger over required masking and other pandemic policies.
Conservatives are pushing for "parental rights," a phrase that gained popularity during Republican Glenn Youngkin's 2021 Virginia governor's election.
Republican advocates for parental rights have called for school cameras to allow parents to view what their children are learning in real time. Other activists argue schools need cameras to prevent mass shootings.
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