In Guilford County, voters will see three open seats for school board including District 3, 4 and 5. For county commission, there are three open seats in Districts 4, 5 and 6. Below are the candidates running for each race, with incumbents listed first.
To see which district you are in, visit here for county commission and here for school board.
Early voting is underway and runs through Nov. 2. Election Day is on Nov. 5. Voters can register to vote during the early voting period and can cast their vote at any open polling location during that time. Find places to vote early here. All voters will have to show a valid photo ID to vote this year.
On Election Day, voters are required to go to their assigned precinct. To look up your assigned polling place, learn more about the voting laws and find your sample ballot, visit nc.gov/living/voting.
GUILFORD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD
District 3
Republican: Michael Logan (i)
Read his full candidate responses here.
Incumbent Michael Logan became the District 3 representative after a contentious dispute between Republicans and Democrats on the local school board. Initially, after the previous representative, Pat Tillman resigned, the Republicans on the board chose Logan to fill the seat but the board’s Democratic members — which make up a majority of the board — opposed their pick, pointing out past comments and social media posts made by Logan that were “racially prejudiced.” Democrats then seated Bill Goebel, a different Republican in the seat against local Republicans’ will. After some back and forth, including input from state legislators, a law was passed that allowed Logan to take the seat a year ago after Goebel resigned.
A former Guilford County Schools teacher, he spent 26 years with GCS and mainly taught automotive technology to students. Regarding school vouchers, Logan believes that the “money follows the student, it can go both ways. When you create an environment that parents want their children to attend, you win the money.” As for parents’ roles in shaping school curriculum, Logan stated: “Parental rights and responsibilities come first…All curriculum and materials should be available for parents.” On LGBTQ+ rights in schools, he said, “One student shouldn’t have more rights than another. Sexual orientation isn’t included in subject matter. All students can learn.”
Logan supports the ¼ cent sales tax increase for teacher and school staff pay.
Logan attended TCB’s Greensboro reverse town hall.
Democrat: David Coates
Read his full candidate responses here.
First-time candidate and longtime school board attorney, David Coates’s top three issues include “physical and emotional safety of students and staff, attractive pay for teachers and staff and accountability for student achievement.” State representatives have been working to expand school vouchers, and Coates stated that he’s “adamantly opposed” to private school vouchers, calling them a “direct assault on public education.” He would prioritize school safety by having a nurse in every school, banning semi-automatic weapons and having periodic security reviews of schools. Coates supports the ¼ cent sales tax increase for teacher and school staff pay.
Coates attended TCB’s Greensboro reverse town hall.
Unaffiliated: Bill Goebel
Read his full candidate responses here.
A former Republican, Goebel gathered the necessary number of signatures to appear on the ballot this November as an unaffiliated candidate. Goebel was on the board from April 2023 until he resigned in August 2023. He’s against school vouchers, and said that the money should instead be going toward teacher raises as well as school facilities — which a large portion of counties’ budgets goes toward. He added that his philosophy on LGBTQIA2S+ rights in schools is: “Every student has a right to be identified as they wish, no exceptions. Let’s keep politics [out] of our schools.” Coates supports the ¼ cent sales tax increase for teacher and school staff pay.
Goebel attended TCB’s Greensboro reverse town hall.
District 5
Democrat: Deborah Napper (i)
According to Napper’s Facebook page, she is a registered nurse, mom and PTA volunteer. In an Oct. 1 video posted to social media, she stated that one of the questions she is frequently asked is, “What have I done? What did I do for four years?”
She said that the answer is “pretty simple.”
“The first thing I did is show up” for commissioner meetings and duties. “I personally think that that attendance record thing is a pretty big deal for elected officials,” she said. Some things she posts about are gun violence, tax increases for teacher pay and fentanyl poisoning awareness.
In a News & Record article, Napper noted that her priorities include oversight of bond money for school construction and repair, hiring more police for schools and offering better pay for teachers.
During a candidate forum in September, Napper noted that public dollars should stay in public schools and that she doesn’t support the expansion of private school vouchers. She also said that she wants to see more environmental consciousness within the school system including solar buses and solar panels on schools.
She supports LGBTQIA2S+ students and is endorsed by the Guilford Green Foundation.
Republican: Cara Townsend Dohner
Read her full candidate responses here.
Republican Cara Dohner previously worked for former Gov. Pat McCrory as a policy analyst, and worked for former president George W. Bush’s office before that. She was also a legislative assistant for the US House of Representatives, working for four members of Congress. She’s currently the regional director of community relations for Vaya Health and was the former president of the Greater Greensboro Republican Women’s Club.
The three most important issues to her are “school safety for students, teachers and staff, more transparency for parents, teachers, school board members and the community, and behavioral health solutions for our classrooms.” She supports the proposed quarter-cent sales tax. On parents’ roles in shaping curriculum, she said, “I think parents and grandparents deserve to know what their kids are learning in school. I think constituents should oversee electing leaders who will shape school curriculum.”
During a candidate forum in September, Dohner noted that she supports diversity in schools, noting how there are dozens of languages spoken in the school system. She also stated that LGBTQ+ students need to be protected from discrimination and she would support mental health training for teachers.
Dohner attended TCB’s Greensboro reverse town hall.
District 7
Democrat: Bettye Jenkins (i)
The BOE’s current vice-chair, Bettye Jenkins, has been in office since 2020. She worked for more than 30 years with Guilford County Schools’ families, and over the course of her years in Greensboro, she worked as a library clerk, teacher’s assistant, counselor, school social worker, community service work coordinator and social work supervisor. According to her website, she will work to “implement plans for parental involvement, ensure educators have resources for 21st Century content and utilize leadership experience to create positive change.” Jenkins attended TCB’s Greensboro reverse town hall.
Republican: Karen Coble Albright
No website
According to Albright’s LinkedIn profile linked in her Ballotpedia page, she works at West Market Realty and attended Guilford Technical Community College.
GUILFORD COUNTY COMMISSION
District 4
Democrat: Mary Beth Murphy (i)
Read her full candidate responses here.
Murphy has been in office since 2020. In a statement shared with TCB, Murphy noted that she “ran for this office because of [her] deeply held belief in public schools as the foundation of our democracy.”
She stated that “being a County Commissioner is about improving quality of life for all members of our community. In order to do this, we must not only invest in our public schools, but also improve access to healthcare and support economic development that allows all people to thrive. We have made great progress in these areas over the last four years, and there is still work to be done, which is why I am seeking re-election.”
Murphy attended TCB’s Greensboro reverse town hall.
Republican: Tony Jacobelli
Read his full candidate responses here.
Tony Jacobelli is an engineer and has served as a Guilford County poll judge according to his website. In the candidate questionnaire he filled out for TCB, Jacobelli stated that one area the county could improve upon is “affordable, quality housing,” and thinks that it spends too much money on “social programs that have had no little or no recorded results toward improvements of those they are chartered to help.” Jacobelli does not support tax increases to support school infrastructure or teacher pay, and stated that the county commission’s relationship with the homeless community should be to offer “temporary, constructive and efficient assistance to get them onto a path for responsible citizenry. Municipalities should not be encouraging or condoning a lifestyle of homelessness, but providing the temporary help needed to get them out of homelessness, permanently.”
District 5
Democrat: Carly Cooke (i)
Read her full candidate responses here.
Carly Cooke has been a commissioner since 2020, and was driven to run for office after becoming “actively involved” in her youngest son’s school when he started kindergarten and seeing the “significant and ongoing lack of support” that public schools “endure,” according to her statement to TCB. Some issues that are a priority to Cooke are investing in public education, improving access to healthcare and basic needs for the county’s “most vulnerable residents” and addressing housing and food needs. “We’ve been fortunate to experience significant economic growth in recent years. We must work to continue this momentum but also assess and anticipate infrastructure needs to ensure our community can continue to thrive amid the economic growth,” she stated.
Cooke attended TCB’s Greensboro reverse town hall.
Republican: Reece Walker
No website
Reece Walker lost his seat on Summerfield’s town council last year after serving on the board for eight years.
District 6
Democrat: Brandon Gray-Hill (i)
Read his full candidate responses here.
Brandon Gray-Hill has been in office since October 2023, filling in the remainder of Commissioner James Upchurch’s term after he vacated the seat. According to Gray-Hill’s website, he’s a small-business owner, community activist and former first vice-chair of the Guilford County Democratic Party. Gray-Hill’s top three issues are “schools, economic development and public health/safety,” according to his candidate questionnaire. “I think our team does a great job of allocating funding,” Gray-Hill said of county spending. “As Republicans in the General Assembly continue to defund our public schools, the county has to step in and fill the gap. If over half of our budget did not have to go to our schools we would be able to afford to spend more money in other places but at this time we cannot.” Gray-Hill supports the ¼-cent sales tax for teacher and staff pay.
Republican: Maritza Gomez
Maritza Gomez is a small business owner. According to her website, she supports lowering taxes and cutting “waste from the county budget.” As for her stance on public safety, she stated that the county is “currently experiencing a massive crime spike fueled by Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies. As your County Commissioner, I will make sure that the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office is not only getting the funding it deserves but the accountability it needs.”
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