Civics Guest Speakers Explore Community Decision-Making

GDS parents Denise Roth (who is also a member of the GDS Board of Trustees) and Chip Roth visited Mark Catlett’s upper school Civics class this week to discuss careers that have a significant impact on society and the community one lives in. Their presentation also covered the role of voters in shaping their communities in a significant way and how decisions and policies from the past continue to impact the present and future.

Ms. Roth and Mr. Roth discussed two examples of community decision-making with the students. First, they explained how bonds work in a community to fund public projects, using Guilford County’s bond initiatives to fund facilities projects in Guilford County Schools as an example. The students learned about the importance of a bond rating for a county to secure funding, the relationship between the school board and the county commissioners, and the impact that outside forces—such as inflation and the impact of public opinion on the re-election of public officials—can have on decisions as time goes on.

The second example was the Fair Housing Act of 1968 as an attempt to achieve quality of life in housing for all citizens of the United States. In this example, students learned the history of “redlining” following the Great Depression. Ms. Roth explained that these policies not only affected communities of color in the past, but also continue to have an impact on those neighborhoods and communities today.

GDS thanks Denise and Chip for sharing their knowledge, built from years of experience in public service at both the local and national level. Ms. Roth is a former Greensboro city manager and served in the General Services Administration. She is currently an infrastructure and government strategy consultant. Mr. Roth served in the U.S. Small Business Administration and on the North Carolina Employment Security Commission. He is currently a business strategy consultant.