This week we respond to questions about cholesterol and sleep aids.

Dear HOUSE Calls, What is worse in your diet for heart disease – cholesterol or carbohydrates?

This is a tough one. Basically, the most important lifestyle issues for heart disease are: 1. quit smoking (if you smoke); 2. safe levels of aerobic activity; and 3. controlling your body weight. There are a number of fad diets, and the extremes seem to be an apparent contradiction. The Ornish diet is a heart-healthy low-fat, low-cholesterol diet. The Adkins diet is a low-carbohydrate diet. But if you avoid carbohydrates and fat, there is not that much left to eat. We preach moderation and sustainable changes. Cholesterol is not as bad as was once thought, but a diet high in saturated fats is a bigger problem. Good fats, such as those you find in olive oil, canola oil and almonds are healthy. Carbohydrates come in “good” and “bad” types too. Basically, processed carbohydrates (flour, sugar) and high-glycemic foods, which increase blood sugar (potatoes and corn, for example) should be consumed in moderation. Whole grains are an important part of your diet. Sorry for avoiding your question, but it’s complicated. Work with your doctor and a nutritionist. Make lifelong changes that promote a healthy body.

Dear HOUSE Calls, I was given a prescription for Ambien from my doctor. The pharmacist warned me of all these side effects. Should I follow the orders of the doctor or the advice of the pharmacist?

These are both highly trained members of your clinical care team. Ideally, you might be cared for in an environment where these two actually communicate effectively and are therefore members of the same team, but that is probably the exception. Getting them to talk with each other may alleviate some of this confusion. You could also talk to your doctor about the side effects and your concerns. We wonder if the pharmacist really discussed side effects or merely slipped a paper in your bag with scores of side effects. Did the pharmacist advise you not to take the medicine (that would be unusual) or merely want you to keep an eye out for potential side effects? To get back to your question, we would need to understand what side effects you are worried about, how common or severe they might be, how bad your sleep is and what else you have tried. In general, if you decide not to take a prescribed medicine, it is a good idea to let your doctor know.

House Calls is a weekly column by Dr. Adam Goldstein, Dr. Cristy Page and Dr. Adam Zolotor on behalf of Your Health and the UNC Department of Family Medicine.

While Price will now go up against Republican Chris Weaver in the November general election, there is no Republican challenger to the District 1 seats. Democrat Bernadette Pelissier, who was unopposed in the primary, will face Republican challenger Mary Carter for one available at-large seat.

In District 1, Dorosin, a former member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, finished with 10,474 votes (36 percent); Rich, a Chapel Hill Town Council member, 9,709 (33 percent); and Hemminger, 9,167 (31 percent).

In District 2, Price earned 6,237 votes (67 percent) and Yuhasz received 3,099 (33 percent).

“I’m just ecstatic,” Price told a crowd of Democrats gathered Tuesday night at The Depot in Hillsborough. “I’m almost at a loss for words.”

The District 1 race was tight all night, with Dorosin maintaining a slight lead throughout and Rich just barely holding off Hemminger.

“I kind of expected it to be tight,” Rich said. “All three of us have name recognition.”

Of her decision to jump from the Chapel Hill Town Council to the board of commissioners, Rich said, “It just hit me in the face that the time was right,” citing her perception of an “unnecessary wedge between city and rural folks” that she felt she could help remove.

“I thought it would be good to have someone on the board with a municipal perspective,” she said.

Communications between the commission and the municipal boards must be improved, and the interests of rural and municipal residents shouldn’t be viewed as mutually exclusive, Rich said. “We benefit from each other.”

Both Rich and Dorosin said they felt that, especially if Price wins in the general election, the board would be charting a new course.

Mark Dorosin does some last-minute campaigning at Lake Hogan Farms on Tuesday. Photo by Alicia Stemper

“I think what the commission really needs is to be re-energized,” Dorosin said, “and I hope I can provide that.”

“My experience as a civil rights lawyer I think will be invaluable,” Dorosin, who is senior managing attorney with UNC’s Center for Civil Rights, continued, “and my experience as a longtime business owner in downtown Chapel Hill I think will bring a practical perspective that’s been missing.”

“I think the people of Orange County need more contact with their commissioners,” Rich said.

Dorosin agreed: “Leaders who are committed and have vision and are listening to the priorities and the needs of the community can make positive, meaningful, effective change.”

But that can’t be done without community engagement, he said. “That’s something I hope to make a priority.”

“We pride ourselves in this community on a high level of political engagement, which we have,” Dorosin said, “but I think we have it from a fairly narrow spectrum of the people who live here, and hopefully I can help broaden that spectrum.”

Yuhasz said on Wednesday that while he didn’t feel his and Hemminger’s defeats could be attributed to a general anti-incumbent impulse, he did believe that the commission has asserted itself in the past couple of years to an extent it hasn’t in the past – noting, as an example, an easing of land-use restrictions – and that perhaps people in the southern part of the county haven’t appreciated that. This, he said, probably hurt Hemminger, whose district covers that population.

“I think it will be a much different board than it has been,” Yuhasz said. “We’ll go back to the way things were done for 25 years,” prior to this commission.

Dorosin cited reparations for the Rogers Road community and finding a solution for the county’s solid waste as his top priorities.

Rich listed the same priorities, plus education and mass transit. “We must put mass transit on the block for people to understand,” she said.

“But the biggest issue is really bridging the rural-city gap,” Rich said. “It’s really about communications.”

Statewide, 61 percent, or 1,303,994, voted in favor of the amendment, with 39 percent, or 832,283, voting against.

In Orange County, voters came out strongly against the amendment, with nearly 79 percent, or 35,980, voting against, and about 21 percent, or 9,587, voting for. Buncombe, Dare, Watauga, Mecklenburg, Durham, Wake and Chatham counties also voted against the amendment, with the state’s remaining 92 counties voting for it.

“We are disappointed in the results,” said Aaron Nelson, president and CEO of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce. “We are proud of how Orange County voted and how the urbanized areas of North Carolina voted.”

Opponents of the amendment argued that the measure could impact domestic-partner benefits offered by businesses and municipalities, and some said they worried that the amendment could drive businesses away or prevent them from coming to North Carolina.

“A lot of the proponents said this wasn’t going to have any impact on the ways of businesses, and we look forward to helping them make good on that commitment,” Nelson said. “It is still the case that North Carolina, and the Triangle in particular, is one of the greatest places to grow and start an enterprise, and maybe that is even underscored by this effort. This great coalition would prove that we have a very progressive business community.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said he was shocked and disappointed by the results, and worried that the amendment could affect Chapel Hill’s domestic-partner benefits for its employees. Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County all offer domestic-partner benefits for their employees, and the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, Chapel Hill Town Council and Orange County Board of Commissioners all passed resolutions officially opposing the amendment.

“We’re really fortunate that we live in a community that gets it,” Kleinschmidt said. “By that I mean that recognizes the value of full equality for everyone and that understands how dangerous this amendment could be to everyone in North Carolina. … We are going to have to work hard to … try to mitigate the potential damages this amendment could do and try to protect employees and protect our neighbors and families.”

“I am concerned about potential challenges that others might bring to our benefits package,” he continued. “We were sued back in the ’90s when we began offering domestic-partner benefits, and we won, but that was in a time before there was a constitutional amendment.”

Carrboro Board of Aldermen member Lydia Lavelle said she too was concerned about the amendment’s impacts on Carrboro’s domestic-partner benefits.

“Now that the vote’s actually happened, we’re going to have our attorney take a look at the language of the amendment,” she said. “We’re certainly going to do everything we can to continue to offer domestic-partner benefits.”

“It’s more time, more expenditure of resources, more energy put into something. It’s just a shame that we have to do this, but it’s just something that we have to do,” she added.

Lavelle said she is hopeful that support for the amendment will wane in coming years.

“If we had managed to defeat it last night, it would have been in my view a watershed moment for the gay rights movement. I think the vote was much closer than it was five years ago,” she said, adding that five years from now, it would be even closer. “It’s just a matter of time.”

Durham Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson granted a preliminary injunction preventing the town from enforcing either ordinance, saying he agreed with the plaintiff’s appeal that the ordinances could cause King’s business irreparable harm. The Town of Chapel Hill now has the opportunity to file a response to King’s complaint, and the matter is likely to go back before the court in the next 90 days.

Thomas Stark, King’s attorney, argued that the provision in the towing ordinance requiring towing companies to answer calls to the number posted on towing signs would cause small towing companies whose phone number is that of the cell phone of the truck operator to be in violation of the cell phone ordinance by complying with the towing ordinance.

“More so, the phone is the lifeblood of this kind of business,” Stark said. “This is not a big business with a dispatcher and hundreds of wreckers. This is a small business with one or two wreckers.”

The cell phone ordinance, approved by the Chapel Hill Town Council in a 5-4 decision in March, was to be enacted June 1. It would have prohibited the use of cell phones or any additional technology while operating a car in town, carrying a $25 fine for violation.

An assistant state attorney general told the town in an opinion letter that he didn’t believe the town had the authority to enact such an ordinance. Stark argued that the town’s ordinance would be preempted by state law, but Chapel Hill Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos said he had specifically crafted the ordinance so that it exempts provisions already regulated by the state.

The council approved changes tightening the town’s towing ordinance in February, responding to concerns about predatory towing practices. The changes, which were to go into effect May 1, would have limited towing fees to $125 town-wide; would require towing companies to accept multiple forms of payment, including credit and debit cards; require that companies have storage lots located no farther than 15 miles from the point of tow; create a system of graduated fines for companies that violate the ordinance; require that one sign be posted at every third parking space and a sign be posted notifying drivers of video surveillance, in addition to signage previously required at the entrance to the lots; and require companies to notify the police department before towing a vehicle.

Stark also argued that the signage requirements would put a huge cost burden on towing companies, in addition to being unappealing to the businesses whose parking lots were monitored by tow trucks.

Karpinos said he had spoken with the council in closed session on Monday and that they said they would be willing to change the provision in the ordinance requiring that towing companies’ answer their phones, as well as the provision regarding signage. Because the cell phone ordinance wasn’t scheduled to go into effect until June, he said, it didn’t present King with any immediate harm.

The injunction prevents the town from enforcing its entire towing ordinance, not just the amendments that were enacted in February.

Closing arguments in the trial were heard on Monday and the jury began deliberations on Monday evening shortly before court was adjourned. They returned at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday and reached a unanimous decision by 3:30 p.m.

Minton, 21, was found guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree kidnapping.

As the verdict was read, Bailey’s family and friends who filled two rows of the courtroom pews gasped and grabbed one another’s hands as some began to cry, seemingly relieved.

On the opposite side of the courtroom, Minton and his parents, who were sitting behind him, remained motionless as the clerk read out the verdict. Minton only showed emotion as the judge and Orange-Chatham District Attorney Jim Woodall began talking about sentencing.

“I do believe Brian Minton is extremely dangerous,” Woodall said, asking Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson to sentence him to more than life in prison because of the potential for legislation regarding sentencing to change in the future.

“He should be in the North Carolina Department of Corrections for the rest of his natural life,” Woodall said.
During this exchange, Minton slumped over in his chair, shook his head and put his head in his hands, as the reality of the jury’s verdict seemed to sink in.

“Mr. Glover,” Hudson said as he addressed the defendant and his attorney, James Glover, “you told us at one of the breaks that you have been practicing law for over 40 years. I’ve been a judge for 27 years, and this is as cold-blooded a killing that I have seen in 27 years.”

On the charge of first-degree murder, Hudson sentenced Minton to life in prison without the benefit of parole. On the count of first-degree kidnapping, he received a minimum of 116 months and a maximum of 149 months in prison, to be served at the expiration of his life sentence. The court arrested judgment on the conspiracy to commit first-degree kidnapping, meaning Minton was instead only sentenced for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, which Hudson determined was to be served by a minimum of 220 months or a maximum of 273 months in prison, starting at the expiration of his first-degree kidnapping sentence.

Prior to the sentencing, Bailey’s parents addressed the courtroom to tell those in attendance about who their son was, beyond what was said about him in testimony.

“Joshua McCabe Bailey is my son, or rather he was my son before this cold-blooded act ended his life,” Julie Jarrell Bailey said.

“During this trial we heard a lot of some of Josh’s shortcomings and weaknesses and what he did wrong, but nothing about his strengths. Josh loved adventure and just about anything relating to the outdoors,” she said, painting a picture of who her son was and who he could have grown up to be, as many jury members and others wept.

Julie Bailey also addressed Minton and his parents directly, looking them in the eye and reprimanding them for what they allegedly did to her son.

“This is a horror I will never be able to comprehend or come to terms with for the rest of my life,” she said.

Mishele and Greg Minton were also charged in the murder of Josh Bailey, as accessories to murder after the fact, and Julie Bailey said she held them partially responsible for what happened to her son.

Steve Bailey told the court about the impact his son’s death has had on him, his wife and Josh’s two brothers.

“Our life has been changed forever,” he said. “I still have nightmares, imagining Joshua’s torturous last hours. We rarely get sleep, and we cry every night.”

Although Minton declined to address the court, his attorney spoke on his behalf to the Bailey family. “From me and from Brian, I am sorry about Josh.”

Glover said that Minton plans to appeal and will be appointed a public defender by the court.

A THOUSAND WORDS
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And when these young athletes’ heads collide, as they will – on the gridiron, for example, or the ice – they sometimes do so at accelerations of upwards of 180 g’s.

(To give you some perspective, if you drove your car into a wall at 25 miles per hour and your head hit the windshield, the impact would register at about 100 g’s.)

Kevin Guskiewicz knows well the cost of such contact. In addition to being a concerned football and hockey fan, with four sons who play organized contact sports, he’s Kenan Distinguished Professor and chair of the department of exercise and sport science in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, co-director of the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center and research director for the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes.

Last September, Guskiewicz was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a prize given to groundbreakers in a wide variety of fields. He’ll receive $500,000 over the next five years to spend as he deems appropriate, advancing his work as a researcher and reformer in the field of sport-related concussion.

Guskiewicz’s research has found that each year in this country some 300,000 sport-related head injuries are sustained, and his work with retired NFL players has underscored the high correlation between multiple concussions and the early onset of neurodegenerative changes, including depression and dementia.

In the past three weeks, two former NFL players have committed suicide. Ray Easterling, 62, who had suffered from depression and dementia for 20 years, was one of seven former players who have filed a class-action suit against the league, claiming it has failed to properly treat concussions and for years failed to acknowledge the issue. He committed suicide on April 19.

Then last week, Junior Seau, 43, a linebacker who had played organized football for nearly 30 years, shot himself in the chest. His family is now deciding whether to allow his brain to be donated for research.

A third player, Dave Duerson, 50, who reportedly was suffering from degenerating short-term memory loss, shot himself to death in February 2011, leaving a note that read, “Please, see that my brain is given to the NFL’s brain bank.”

Concussion has been defined as a “traumatically induced alteration of awareness or consciousness,” which may cause a loss of balance, headaches, amnesia, sleep disturbances, vertigo and hearing loss.

Several years ago, Alan Schwartz of the New York Times asked a high school football player whether he would tell his coach if he was once again experiencing concussion-like symptoms: “No chance. It’s not dangerous to play with a concussion. You’ve got to sacrifice for the sake of the team. The only way I come out is on a stretcher.”

Bigger. Stronger Faster. But more aware today of the hazards? “Yes,” says Guskiewicz, “but we’ve got to continue to do better.”

‘Perplexed’
Guskiewicz is from Latrobe, Penn., outside Pittsburgh, big-time football country. “Football’s in my blood,” he said. He grew up playing the sport, but realized that a future as a player wasn’t in the cards.

Instead, sports medicine became his passion.

He enrolled in a premier sports-medicine program at West Chester University near Philadelphia, dual majored in sports medicine and journalism, and then moved on to the University of Pittsburgh and a trainer’s gig with the Pittsburgh Steelers for two-and-a-half years. The Steelers paid for his education and he left Pitt with a master’s degree in physics and sports medicine.

“While I was working for the Steelers,” Guskiewicz said, “I was perplexed by the arbitrary way decisions were made about concussion. We had all these special tests and clinical measures to assess ankle injuries and knee injuries and shoulder injuries, but there was so little on head injury.”

He thought to himself, “My goodness; the brain is a pretty important organ, and how in the world do we not have more sophisticated ways of assessing this injury?”

He continued on to doctoral work at the University of Virginia, writing his dissertation on the effects of concussion on balance measures.

One of the first confirmed cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a retired professional football player was former Steeler Mike Webster. Webster’s decline, post-NFL, into destitution and severe depression was well documented. He died in 2002, of heart failure, at age 50; his death certificate indicated that he suffered from “chronic concussive brain injury.”

Webster’s autopsy showed tau protein deposits on his brain. These deposits, Guskiewicz said, create neurofibrillary tangles similar to those found in Alzheimer’s patients, causing depression, emotional outbursts and issues with executive functioning that can be linked to dementia.

Similar deposits are now being found in the brains of other former athletes who played contact sports in which repetitive impacts to the head occur, and also have been found in younger athletes – as young as 18 years old.

Unfortunately, they can only be identified in vitro, after death.

A different game
Several things have changed about the game of football in the past few decades.

“Equipment is better,” Guskiewicz said, “which is good and bad. It’s good in that we’re doing a better job of protecting against catastrophic injuries, such as skull injuries and drastic acceleration and deceleration of the brain that can cause vessels to rupture.”

But better helmets mean athletes tend to use their heads more – that is, they tend to lead with their heads when tackling.

“It’s a more aggressive game today,” Guskiewicz said. “We do see that blocking and tackling techniques have changed over the years … and so the physics of the collisions are more problematic.”

Advocates have proposed protecting kids from contact sports till, say, 14 years old, restricting organized leagues to flag football, noncontact hockey and soccer that prohibits heading the ball.

Guskiewicz is against that. Motor-learning studies, he said, show that kids begin to develop skill and coordination and to use their kinesthetic abilities to protect themselves at 8 years old up through 14 or 15.

“I think that’s when my kids have learned to protect themselves,” he said, “and they’ve done it in an environment – in Pop Warner football or youth hockey – where those leagues control for weight and age. … In middle school or high school football, a kid may strap on pads for the first time and now you could be that 115-pound kid going up against a 180-pound kid, and the hits are more significant at that age.

“So I think there’s something valuable that takes place during those developmental years, if you have good coaching and good equipment and the proper techniques are being taught.”

According to research released in April by UNC’s National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury, with which Guskiewicz works closely, the number of high school football-related brain injuries with permanent disability had been in single digits since 1984 but rose to 10 in 2008 and 2009 and to 13 in 2011.

Guskiewicz believes the incident rate of football-related concussions is on the rise across the board.

But, at the youth level, and probably the high school level, he said, “I really think that 85 to 90 percent of the increased rate has to do with reporting. I think that we’re closing the gap on the number of reported concussions and unreported concussions.”

Several states, including North Carolina, Texas and Oregon, have passed legislation that requires coaches and medical staff to be educated in detecting and responding to symptoms of concussion. Some states’ laws require emergency personnel to always be on site during games.

At the pro level, kick-offs – in which 11 members of one team hurtle downfield at full speed in the direction of 11 of the other’s, likewise advancing – have been a primary source of head and other injuries, sometimes generating those aforementioned 180-plus g’s. A rule change imposed last season designed to better protect players has resulted, Guskiewicz said, in a 42 percent reduction in kick-off concussions, with no dramatic impact on the game.

The NFL is also more strictly enforcing rules against players leading with their heads, fining and sometimes suspending players for violations.

Guskiewicz sits on the NCAA’s concussion committee and the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee and helped write concussion guidelines that are now recommended by the National Athletic Trainers Association and the American College of Sports Medicine.

Bigger still
At UNC, Guskiewicz does neurocognitive and balance tests on about 80 percent of student-athletes – those involved in contact sports – which are used as a baseline to assess damage and track recovery in the event an athlete later sustains a head injury. And in 2004, he and his colleagues began equipping the football helmets of all UNC players with sensors that measure the force of every hit, collected during every practice and game, thereby gathering invaluable data.

Most probably, our young athletes will grow bigger, stronger and faster yet – advances in science and technology will see to that, and it’s not likely high schools, colleges or professional leagues will set a limit on how much muscle mass an athlete can nurture.

Guskiewicz will be using his MacArthur money to further advance his research, “to grow that pot of money,” he said, offering a portion of it as matching funds to organizations in a position to help further the study – perhaps the NCAA, the NFL or the National Operating Committee for Standards in Athletic Equipment.

In the early days of his research, Guskiewicz was routinely met with resistance. Today, the data continues to mount. Lives are at stake, and continued education is critical.

Foushee won nearly 85 percent of the vote (7,886), while Phelps had 15 percent (1,426). Chaney carried 55.4 percent of the vote (1,897) and defeated Jason Chambers (18.8 percent), Thomas Samuel Wright (16.2 percent) and W. Lewis Hannah, Jr. (9.6 percent).

Redistricting plans call for District 50 to include portions of Orange and Durham counties.

For the House District 56 seat, which includes Carrboro and Chapel Hill, Rep. Verla Insko was unchallenged in the Democratic primary in her bid to win reelection. She will face Republican Karrie Mead in November. Mead was likewise unchallenged in her primary bid.

In state Senate District 23, which includes Orange County, Democrat Sen. Ellie Kinnaird ran unopposed in the primary for a ninth term. Republican Dave Carter will challenge her in November.

For the Orange County Schools Board of education, incumbents Steve Halkiotis and Tony McKnight and newcomer Lawrence Sanders won election with 27.8 percent (8,181), 27.4 percent (8,072) and 24.1 percent (7,095), respectively. Challenger Tommy McNeill carried 16.2 percent of the vote, or 4,777 votes.

Chatham County
In the state House District 54 Democratic primary, Deb McManus defeated Jeff Starkweather with nearly 59 percent, or 6,786, to 41 percent, or 4,738. She will face Republican Cathy Wright, who ran unopposed in the primary, in November.

The District 54 seat, which under redistricting represents all of Chatham County and a portion of Lee County, is now held by Joe Hackney, who will not run for reelection.

Democrat incumbent Sally Kost will face Republican Sam Shriver in November for the District 1 seat on the Chatham County Board of Commissioners. Both ran unopposed in their primaries.

Democrat incumbent Mike Cross will seek reelection to his District 2 seat, unchallenged in the primary. He will face Republican Bill Crawford in November.

David Hamm ran unopposed for the District 2 seat in the nonpartisan Chatham County Board of Education race. Karen Howard also ran unopposed for the District 1 seat.

Chatham County Register of Deeds Treva Seagroves, a Democrat, received no challengers in her bid for reelection.

Although it was nowhere on the agenda of last Thursday night’s meeting, parents, students and staff from Frank Porter Graham Elementary and Glenwood Elementary schools attended the meeting to voice their concerns.

Due to the large volume of people who showed up to the board’s April 19 meeting to speak against the district’s recent dual-language recommendations, a police officer was on hand at this meeting to help with crowd control, and comments were again limited to two minutes instead of the usual three.

However, before the public comments even started, school board member Jamezetta Bedford apologized for how quickly the report containing the dual-language recommendations was released.

Bedford told the packed room she believed that if the board had a chance to do it over again they would have liked to create it with more input from the affected parties.

“We would have liked to meet in advance with you all before that dual-language report was released,” Bedford said as the crowd thanked her and gave her a loud round of applause.

The dual-language administrative team, formed by the school board, released a report on March 26 with recommendations on how to improve the school district’s dual-language programs. These included expanding the Spanish dual-language program, terminating the K-5 Mandarin program at Glenwood and converting Frank Porter Graham to a Spanish dual-language magnet school for the 2013-14 school year.

Many parents said they thought the recommendations were made too quickly, without thoughtful research into how the different communities would be affected.

Kristin Somers, who has been helping resettle Karen refugees through Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, talked to the school board about how the Karen population would be negatively affected if FPG is turned into a magnet school.

“You think that children are the most adaptable,” Somers said. “However, it’s a struggle to make friends and complete their school work for those who cannot speak English.”

Somers talked about how the large Karen community surrounding FPG helps support one another when parents don’t have cars or have to work nights.

While many spoke about their grievances with the report, some parents presented the school board with solutions.

Sharon Stevens, a parent of three children at FPG, suggested the district’s elementary school 12 should become a dual-language magnet school when it opens.

“Everyone will know that if their child is in dual language they will be moved there,” Stevens said. “That means no surprises.”

“We don’t want to fight about whose school Frank Porter Graham gets to be,” she added.

The dual-language advisory team will be presenting to the board at their May 17 meeting.