About Pastors for North Carolina Children

OUR MISSION

It is a noble task public schools undertake each day in caring for our children.

We are calling people of faith to love and support their public school neighbors to ensure healthy, thriving communities for all.

Our vision is for every child in North Carolina to have equitable opportunities to flourish through a fully-resourced and well-supported public school system.

Pastors for North Carolina Children exists to:

ELEVATE

the importance of public schools as a way to love neighbors and build beloved community.

We draw on the principles of righteousness at the core of every faith to compel people to seek justice, serve their neighbors, and unite for the common good.

We encourage faith leaders to bring a sense of moral authority to the issue to emphasize our duty to support this worthy cause that touches all our lives.

EQUIP

people of faith for the work of education advocacy.

We listen to the experience of students, teachers, and parents to understand the unique needs of each community to guide our advocacy.

Our outreach efforts focus on ensuring more consistent funding and more equitable resource distribution so every child has equal access to educational opportunity.

CONNECT

communities to build a broad, diverse network to support all children, especially the most vulnerable.

We increase the collective power of our voices by joining forces and collaborating with other children’s advocacy groups and public school supporters.

We expand the reach of our mission by bringing together a diverse range of faith communities toward the common goal of serving our public school children.

Pastors for North Carolina Children

Our Principles for Public School Advocacy

Pastors for NC Children’s mission is to mobilize faith communities in support of public schools across North Carolina.

This work of advocacy and justice flows out of our commitment to loving our neighbors and participating in building the beloved community on earth as it is in heaven (Luke 10, Matthew 6, Matthew 25).

Additionally, we are guided by several principles and commitments in our work that speak to the needs of our children and how best to serve them.

Read the principles

● We are committed to an approach that holds together charity and justice for social transformation. While charitable support of our schools (supply drives, food donations, etc.) is needed, charity alone will never be enough. We are committed to addressing the root causes of problems in public schools at the macro level for statewide systemic change.

● We focus on traditional public schools – those who are part of one of NC’s 115 school districts with democratically-elected school boards – as they support the vast majority (80-90%) of children in the state.

● We believe public schools are not failing, but instead are underfunded, under-appreciated, and undervalued as a result of a push to privatize education.

● We believe public tax funding should only go to public schools that are required to serve all children and are regulated by a democratically-elected school board. We support a high wall of separation between church and state in order to ensure public money is not used to fund unregulated private and religious schools.

● We believe enacting the Comprehensive Remedial Plan (“Leandro Plan”) is an essential step to reaching an adequate level of state support to fulfill the NC Constitutional requirement to provide a “sound basic education” for every child. It is the best way to ensure equitable educational opportunities for children regardless of race, ethnicity, economic background, regional location, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation, immigration status, and language(s) spoken.

● Since public schools are a main social safety net for children in our country, advocating for public schools means attending to the needs of the most vulnerable children and paying attention to the forces outside the classroom which hinder the flourishing of all children. To that end, we advocate for poverty-reducing federal education programs such as free and reduced lunch and for adequate support professionals (counselors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, etc.) in our schools. We also believe in the importance of dismantling the prison/deportation pipeline, eliminating discriminatory high stakes testing, instituting culturally responsive teaching, and practicing restorative justice.

● We believe educators need to feel valued and trusted to do the jobs they are trained for and that they should be compensated as the professionals they are. These measures will benefit not only the teachers and children, but our communities as a whole. As public schools are the top employer in almost all NC counties, strong public schools are an investment in the future of North Carolina.

● We believe in building coalitions and seeking out partnerships. Statewide systemic change can only happen when people with shared power and the political will to make needed changes come together. Thus we seek out partnerships and coalition connections to enable the change we wish to see.

Download a copy of the principles

Building Community

Pastors for North Carolina Children is connecting communities around the shared work of public school advocacy. We are building partnerships with:

clergy and congregations
public school staff, parents, and students
child advocacy organizations

We are proud to be members of the following coalitions:

WHO WE ARE

Pastors for North Carolina Children is a 501c3 nonprofit organization established in October 2020.

We are led by an Executive Director and Board of Directors, along with an Advisory Committee who serve to ensure we are listening to and representing stakeholders from across North Carolina.

We currently receive grant funding from:

Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Systemic Change Grant (2021; 2022-23)
Education Law Center’s PEER Network Subgrant (Partnership for Equity & Education Rights)

Our Team

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

The Rev. Suzanne Parker Miller

Moravian Minister

Raleigh, North Carolina

Suzanne is a Moravian minister who attended the Divinity School at Duke University and graduated from The Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, PA, with her Masters of Divinity degree. She has served Moravian, United Methodist, and Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations. She currently attends Raleigh Moravian Church.

Suzanne has been active in justice advocacy since 2013, starting with Moral Monday demonstrations at the North Carolina General Assembly. She earned a Certificate in Justice Ministry Education through Auburn Seminary in 2019 with the Moravian Online Cohort, and her work led her to found Pastors for NC Children in the fall of 2019.

Suzanne grew up in Winston-Salem, NC, where her mother was a teacher in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system. Suzanne earned her undergraduate degree in Public History at Meredith College. Suzanne now lives in Raleigh with her spouse and two school-aged children.

STAFF

Susan Book

Cary, North Carolina

Susan Book is a public school advocate in Cary, North Carolina. Book co-administrates Save Our Schools NC and is a member of Communities for the Education for Every Child. First and foremost, she is a mom of a wonderful boy on the autism spectrum and fights for her son to get a solid public school education.

INTERN

Sandra Wilcox Conway

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Sandra Wilcox Conway recently retired as an independent consultant and CEO of Conway Collaborations. She is currently enrolled in a Master’s of Arts in Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She has worked in social impact consulting, philanthropy and activism since the mid-1980’s. Skilled in Strategic Planning, Organization and Partnership Design, Marketing and Communications, Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy. She brings an entrepreneurial ability to sense and act on opportunity, out-of-the-box thinking and a unique brand of determination. Sandra combines these skills with a deep knowledge of education in the American South, particularly the State of North Carolina, and a passion for history and justice. Her work has been recognized by the Clinton and Obama White House’s for vision and impact. Sandra is a graduate of Chapel Hill High School, Wake Forest University and holds both an MEd. and an MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill. She and her husband, Peter, have three children, Peter, Ben and Adelaide. Sandra‘s goal in the next decade is to use her experience and resources, to support and collaborate with others who are committed to directly addressing issues of race, and resource inequity in education.