Questionnaire Responses – Megan (Chayyim) Kornhauser

1. If elected, in what way(s) will you bring a different and important perspective to the Watauga County School Board

I am a product of Watauga County public schools, I was one of the first preschool classes at Parkway Elementary School and then graduated from Watauga High School. My family has been deeply involved in the public school system with my father serving previously as a school resource officer at Watauga High School and my mother was a teacher’s assistant in an elementary school. I believe that if elected, my experience from having been a student of Watauga County Schools myself and being so close to educators gives me an important perspective to bring to the Board of Education.

I returned to Boone after attending graduate school to receive both my Master of Arts in History and my Master of Education in Educational Leadership to currently work within disability resources in higher education and be an adjunct humanities instructor at a local community college. Working within higher education has exposed me to what students are like once they leave the K-12 system and to see the areas they excel in and the areas that need improvement. I am fortunate to work closely with college students and love to see how proud and expressive they are about themselves and what matters most to them. I also see students who struggle in foundational skills that they missed from public education. While very few of the students I work closest with are from Watauga County specifically, I wanted to bring my perspective and expertise to the Board of Education to help in areas I am able to do so.

2. What do you consider to be the most pressing issue facing Watauga County Schools and how will you address this issue if elected?

The Across the Aisle 2026 Nationwide Education Survey found voters overwhelmingly are concerned about three key issues in relation to public education – hiring quality teachers, teaching practical skills, and addressing the increasing rates of students who are not reading at grade level. And I think these are important issues facing our county too.

I believe that these concerns, and many others, are fundamentally related to the school budget and the allocation of funds. Schools cannot attract and retain quality teachers if our districts are unable to provide them a fair wage. Housing is a concern for everyone in Watauga, but it poses an issue for recruitment and retention for teachers who otherwise have to live in surrounding counties or even Tennessee if they decide to work here. Teachers cannot teach practical, real-world skills for future employment without necessary supplies or available personnel to participate in Career and Technical Education Pathways.

I believe that the concerns people are seeing not only within Watauga County, but nationwide, about students’ academic abilities has multifaceted roots that are reflected in budget cuts. For our schools, cuts from Raleigh hurt our students as we can no longer pay for curriculum

improvements, professional development for teachers, learning supports, accommodations for students with disabilities, and assistance programs. How do students learn if they are hungry?

It is the responsibility of the Board of Education to advocate for increased aid and funding, per pupil, and to be good stewards of public funds through operational efficiency. If elected, I would push for increased funding for our schools from the state to help support our teachers, administrators, and students.

3. If you could increase Watauga County’s public school spending in only one area, what would your priority be and why?

My priority would be the school personnel. Increasing spending to attract and retain strong, high quality personnel to our school system would be my priority as I believe this would best improve the quality of education and resources for students. Having educators who are passionate and seeking professional development alongside administrators and support staff who keep our schools operational, safe, and clean is vital to the success of the students.

4. Do you support or oppose re-directing funding from NC public schools to the state’s Opportunity Scholarship (voucher) program for private and charter schools? Please explain.

My support is with our public schools, which already are underfunded. Vouchers take away critical funding from our public schools that limit schools’ ability to provide the tools that ensure student success. Our students deserve access to food assistance programs, mental healthcare, afterschool programming, and a high quality education, which vouchers undermine schools’ ability to provide those services. I believe that a facet of wanting to serve on the Board of Education is to defend our schools and they rely on funding from the state in order to operate. Students deserve to have textbooks that are current, buildings that are safe, classrooms with necessary supplies, and hot food available in the cafeteria. I oppose programs that would hinder our schools’ capacity to do this.

5. Do you support or oppose the state legislature’s lowering the percentage of NC’s Education Lottery revenue allocated to public schools? Please explain.

The original intent of the Education Lottery when established in 2005 was for 35% of the lottery revenue to go towards education. Our state legislatures quickly changed this from a requirement to a guideline, which has resulted in consistently decreasing revenue being sent to schools, despite record-breaking sales in lottery tickets. A lower percentage of the revenue earned is being sent to schools and the funds are impacted by inflation, causing an overall net loss to our schools.

I oppose lowering the percentage of NC’s Education Lottery revenue that is meant for public education. I believe that these constant attempts at budget cuts by Raleigh are attacks against our public education systems and only hurt our students. If the state is experiencing record-breaking sales, then it should be expected that even more funding be allocated to education.

6. Do you support or oppose NC’s pending House Bill 636 — Promoting Wholesome Content for Students”? Please explain.

I oppose the pending House Bill 636 as I see it as out-of-touch with the realities of education and it is intentionally vague. We have seen that similar bills in other states that are intentionally vague and misleading are used to expand prejudice against marginalized people and to rewrite history to be more comfortable and palatable. Students are able to learn about marginalized identities or be among those in age appropriate ways. Students are able to learn about history that often is uncomfortable in age appropriate ways.

As an early historian, I find that legislation such as House Bill 636 is intended to create a version of history that feels pleasant, but does not teach accuracy or critical thinking skills because it does not challenge students. For example, as a Jewish person, I grew up understanding that most of my family died in the Holocaust. For a project about my family that I did in kindergarten, I wrote little blurbs about my immediate family, my grandparents, and that my extended family likely died at Auschwitz. As a five-year-old, it was not age appropriate for me to understand the full horrors of a concentration camp but I could understand that at the time, there were people who didn’t like my family because of who they were and what they believed in. Learning about the realities of the Holocaust came with time and age. Bills such as this have been used to ban books like Maus by Art Spiegelman, despite that it is an incredibly useful book to explain the events leading up to the Holocaust.

7. State funding for our local schools is tied to enrollment at our local schools. What ideas can you bring forward as a Watauga County School Board member in light of declining enrollment?

Given that it is likely K-12 public school enrollment will continue to decline as people are having fewer children, per the National Center for Education Statistics, I believe that this is going to continue to be an obstacle for public education. This can be an opportunity for the Board of Education to advocate for maintaining or hopefully increase per-pupil funding. It requires strategic investment of funds in critical areas within the school system that will best promote student success and wellbeing. As two out of every five children in Watauga County Schools receive free or reduced lunch, critical supports include food assistance programs. All of the schools presiding in District 4 – Green Valley, Cove Creek, and Mabel – have more than half of the students receiving free or reduced lunches. Declining enrollment is also an opportunity to discuss within the community, including students, families, and teachers, on how to best create learning environments that support students. It is not uncommon for school systems to consolidate schools in the face of low enrollment and low funds, which creates a cycle as families pull their children out of these schools.

8. Do you support or oppose banning books about LGBTQ lives and/or with LGBTQ characters from public schools? Please explain.

Students deserve to see themselves represented in the books they read. Whether that includes LGBTQ+ characters, characters of color, Jewish or Muslim characters, disabled characters, etc., students will either meet people who are different from themselves or will be among those categories themselves. It helps us create a more accepting and kind society for them to see people who live, believe, love, pray, look differently than themselves as just another facet of the human experience. Each successant generation is increasingly identifying as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and I believe it would be a disservice to prevent them from being able to access materials that show people like them.

There is a staggering difference between a book that has LGBTQ+ characters living their lives and adult content, and it concerns me as an openly queer individual that being a member of this community is commonly conflated with perversion. Books showing LGBTQ+ lives can be age-appropriate for any grade level as there is nothing inherently inappropriate to have a main character who simply has two moms or two dads.

9. What are your ideas/proposals for increasing public participation with Watauga’s schools?

I see two areas for public participation with Watauga County schools: participation with the schools themselves and participation within our local government such as the Board of Education. To increase community engagement, I think directly hearing from the community with a variety of perspectives, including families and locals with no personal connection to the schools. I also want to hear from students themselves at age appropriate levels. Children are disenfranchised and very rarely get to determine much in their own lives, which is understandable as children develop (lest my house would have been painted rainbow). But I would be interested in understanding the opinions of students to learn more about their current experiences.

For the latter, I have become increasingly involved in our municipal government this past year and have found this to be a rewarding experience. I came from a mentality that it would be boring, but instead found it incredibly empowering to understand better how our local government works by attending County Commissioner or Board of Election meetings. I think outreach to people within our county to help everyone understand they play a vital role in our civic system is important. Education impacts us all, whether we have attended a school in Watauga County or not or whether we have children in the school system or not. I believe that we all should be concerned about education because students go from our schools to learning how to place IVs or cooking safe food or building bridges or helping file taxes. I think showing how we need public input to function is vital.