Travis Day
Carteret County Board of
Education
(District 4 Seat)
Travis Day
708 Bay Street, Morehead City, NC 28557
Contact: 252-515-0101, boe@travisday.com
Website: www.travisday.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/TravisDayNC
Bios: http://public.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/Faculty/dayt/
Election Guide 2020:
Carteret_County_News_Times_Election_Guide_2020_BOE_Republican_primary_for_District_4.pdf
Family: wife Mary Moran Day, daughters Dylan (West Carteret High School 10th grader) & Anderson (Morehead City Middle School 7th grader), parents Richard & Ellen Day (of Morehead), brothers Rusty & Kevin, grandparents Mary & Leslie Day (of Morehead...originally from Cedar Island) and Mary & Les Bercegeay (of Newport)...all long-time Carteret County residents.
Occupation: Clinical Associate Professor of Strategy and
Entrepreneurship, Kenan-Flagler Business School – University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. Also an Adjunct
Professor for the Gillings School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill.
Education: MBA from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School with a concentration in finance; Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School with a finance concentration and a minor in mathematical sciences/computer science; graduate of West Carteret High School (Carteret County’s 1989 Morehead Scholar nominee); graduate of Morehead City Middle School and Camp Glenn Elementary (MES).
Involvements: 2019 BOE Chairman; Carteret County Public School Foundation ex officio board member; Morehead City Middle School Parent Advisory Council; Chairman of the Carteret County AIG Parent Advisory Council; AIG plan rewrite committee; former Chairman of Morehead Elementary School Parent Advisory Council (2 years); former Morehead City Primary School Parent Advisory Council member; WatchDog at MES and MCPS; Read Across America volunteer; EOG test proctor; 2012 “Dancing with Our Stars” winner (with my wife, raised $8,632 for the Carteret County chapter of Communities in Schools); Girls Youth Volleyball League Coach for Morehead City Parks & Rec; served on Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Undergraduate Program Committee (advised on business school curriculum & other program matters); First United Methodist Church Finance Committee (also served on Stewardship & Scholarship committees).
Why I’m Serving: My wife and I are both products of the
Carteret County Public School System. It was a wonderful experience and I
believe we owe a lot of our successes to the teachers and administrators of
this school system. I want to give back to the school system and to the people
of our county. I have always been extremely involved in the schools, but I want
to do more. I want to ensure our students maintain their competitive spirit and
our schools maintain their competitive edge. We should attempt to challenge
each and every student to their fullest potential. We should strive to turn out graduates who
rival others throughout our state, our country and the world.
Why I feel I’m Suited for the Position:
1) As a current college professor, I understand the value and principles of quality education. (I have over twenty-three years of teaching experience at UNC; since 1997, I have taught close to 10,000 students from UNC’s Business School, School of Public Health, and the rest of UNC.)
2) With multiple degrees in finance, I can guide the BOE to apply business principles in its decision-making concerning its multi-million dollar budget.
3) With two precious daughters currently attending the same schools my wife and I attended while growing up in Morehead, I have pride and a vested interest in Carteret County’s Education System. I know how important education is for our children’s success.
4) I am fiscally responsible – we owe it to our citizens to be frugal and wise with the tax dollars they provide for our schools.
5) I have a true passion for education and hope to use this passion to make a difference in our school system.
I would appreciate your vote.
Thank you,
Travis Day
Other Info:
Do your homework as a
voter!
I feel all voters should be informed voters. Please compare bios and position statements of all Board of Education candidates using the Carteret County News-Times Election Guide 2020:
Carteret_County_News_Times_Election_Guide_2020_BOE_Republican_primary_for_District_4.pdf
Letters of Support
Academics
Letter to Editor on the move from valedictorian/salutatorian to the Latin Honors system.
Partisan Elections
I support partisan elections, because I believe that
party-affiliation can inform voters which candidates’ values and financial
priorities best align with their own.
Personally, I strive to be an informed voter. But I understand that unfortunately, some
voters do not always have the time to thoroughly vet every candidate. Although party affiliation is not foolproof,
it certainly helps in our quest to choose the best candidates.
Partisan elections also reduce the chance of vote-splitting. For example, (based on the image below,) in a
non-partisan race, 2 “orange” candidates can split the orange vote, giving the
“blue” candidate a victory. In an
“orange-leaning” county, it may not be surprising that many “blues” (and some
“professed-oranges”) support non-partisan elections.
It is naďve to think that political ideology does not factor into decisions involving our school system.
Chart above is from modernballots.com.
(If you are interested in learning about voting systems which do an even better job of avoiding problems such as the one illustrated above, check out rangevoting.org.)
MaST
MaST needs to be funded by the state. It should not come at the expense of our
other high schools, in the form of lost teaching positions or otherwise. Our county school system has a LOT of
needs! In my opinion, MaST should not be
a priority over the many, many needs we have.
We need to support education for local trades in our county...not
provide a publicly-funded college prep school for those who want two years of
free college funded by local taxpayers, or for those who simply do want to
attend our county’s public schools. We
are approaching our third year of MaST, and we still have not received
state funding. It is financially
irresponsible to spend money that we do not have on new programs or
schools. And contrary to what you might
have heard or read on the internet or in the paper, it is NOT cheaper to
educate our county’s children at small, specialty schools such as MaST.
More information about MaST can be found at:
www.travisday.com/MaST (webpage has been “retired”)
School Calendar
In order to facilitate our students being able to take classes at the community college (especially trades-related classes), it would be helpful to have our high school semester calendars better align with the community college calendar. However, we must accommodate our tourism-based local economy, and we should not shorten our summer vacations.
More information about the school calendar can be found at:
Election Guide 2016 (from the previous election when I was first elected to the BOE):
2016_County_Board_of_Education_Election_Guide.pdf