Faulk to run for at-large Board of Education seat
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on January 5, 2016 1:46 PM
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Ven Faulk
Ven Faulk, president and owner of Shumate-Faulk Funeral Home, is running for the at-large seat on the Wayne County Board of Education.
Faulk, 51, previously ran for the at-large seat in 2008, against Eddie Radford. Then in 2010, Faulk's name was among those considered by the county commission to appoint a replacement to Shirley Sims' term in the District 2 seat, ultimately filled by Len Henderson. In 2012, he ran for the District 2 seat, now held by Dwight Cannon.
"I ran against Eddie (Radford) in 2008 and lost to him. We've become real good friends since then. We talk a lot," he said. "He let me know he was not going to run again. He was going to support me for my run at the at-large seat.
"I feel like with his support, I'm going in the right direction."
Faulk and his wife, Ashley, a music teacher at Tommy's Road Elementary School and a day care owner, are parents of five children -- ages 17, 11 and 10-year-old triplets. He said they as well as the county's children are the reason he decided to throw his hat into the ring again.
"For the betterment of Wayne County overall and it starts with the children," he said. "The children are the future and if we don't get them going in the right direction to start with -- Wayne County's biggest product to me is our children -- if we make our children more productive, Wayne County's going to be more productive.
"And having five of them myself is what motivates me to make sure that we get the best education possible for them."
He will square off against Raymond Smith Jr. for the at-large seat in November. There is no March primary for the at-large seat since there are only two candidates.
A 1983 graduate of Goldsboro High School, Faulk attended Wayne Community College, N.C. State University, Mount Olive College and Fayetteville Technical Community College. A 24-year member of the Dudley Volunteer Fire Department, including a stint as chief, he is currently serving on the Board of Health.
As the board's at-large member, he says he wants to be "Wayne County's ear" on the school board.
"I will be the representative to every person in Wayne County and I want to be that ear and be open to listen, to be able to take everybody's ideas to the table," he said. "Even if I am just a district (representative) I'd want to do that but even more specific now that I'm running at-large."
Over the years, Faulk has been very actively involved in the schools -- from helping his own children with homework and serving for three years as PTA president at Grantham School to serving on the facilities and real estate committee when the Evergreen Solutions study was made of the district.
"We went around and toured all those schools," he said of the latter. "Some of those schools are still in need of what we saw back then. So schools improvement is a big thing."
His experience as a business owner, as well as a parent, are two of the biggest reasons to cast a vote for Faulk, he says.
"I feel like what we need on this board is parents that are with those kids and seeing what they're doing," he said. "A good example of that is doing homework and doing math.
"When I sit down with my fifth- and sixth-graders doing math and they come and say, 'Can you help me with this problem?' and I say, 'Well, I can tell you the answer but I don't know how you're doing it.' Their process is a whole lot different than my process when I was in school."
One thing he would like to encourage is parental involvement, he said.
"We can fix the schools all we want to. If we don't get it done at home, it's like I said, I'm working with my children every day. Some (students) may not get to go home and have that same interaction," he said. "It may be we need our schools open after school for the parents to be able to come to the school and learn some of the processes that I'm having to learn."
He cited as an example a teacher that puts her lessons online. Students, he said, can go back and review the lesson again. And, equally important, he noted, parents can also have access.
"It would be nice if all parents could go and see what our kids sat through that day and things they learned, what that child learned that day," he said.
Technology is another big component he would like to see addressed, he said.
"We've got to produce better students to become better members of Wayne County who are bringing in more dollars to Wayne County so they can go back into the schools and make better students," he said. "That'll be a continuous circle and if we can ever get that going, we can raise our teacher supplement.
"All teachers make the same salary, but different counties pay different supplements. If we can get our supplement up, better teachers, get our students to be better students, it's the circle of life, you know?"
Faulk said he is also encouraged by the relationships between the school board and other elected officials.
"Even when I've lost, I've stayed active in the schools, kept up with school board members, I have a good relationship with all the commissioners. I feel like that's going to be an asset," he said. "I know with me up there, I'm going to work with them real close, too. If we get those 14 people (school board and commission) working on the same line, our schools can be awesome.
"I also have good relationships with Louis Pate and John Bell. I just think I can bring a lot to the table. I have tried to work to make schools better even though I'm not on the school board and that's what I intend to do one way or the other."