“We needed to have a plan and stay in constant communication with our healthcare partners and the local health department as we began setting guidelines and designing safety measures.” “From the beginning for me, it was a question of minimizing and preventing exposures to liability and breach of duty,” Jenkins says. Its 42 elementary schools, 16 middle schools, 17 high schools and seven special schools serve more than 54,000 students with approximately 7,000 employees. “In my opinion, aside from the medical profession, the education field is the most challenging with trying to navigate the coronavirus pandemic.” New plans neededįormed in 1963 by merging school systems in the city of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is the fourth largest school district in North Carolina. “This has been a challenging year,” she says. These days, Jenkins’ desk has been especially full and the issues especially difficult-COVID-19 alone ensures nothing is routine as she develops policies promoting safety and equity for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County students. “A lot of things coming across my desk are not positive, but everything I do positively impacts kids, even indirectly.” “A lot of in-house counsel look at their job simply in terms of reducing risk, but I also look at it as: How does the work I do impact students?” Jenkins says. But as she notes, the value she adds allows a proactive approach to legal issues the district faces, while she advises the school board and administration on policies and strategies. Not when she used to visit her father’s classrooms during summer breaks, and certainly not when she established her own classroom at home with old textbooks and a blackboard and taught her stuffed animals.Īs general counsel, she’s something of an anomaly-in-house legal roles are not frequently found in North Carolina school districts. Not in her role as general counsel for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Dionne Tunstall Jenkins has never been far from a classroom.
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