North Carolina State Senate District 25

Amy Galey

North Carolina State Sen. Amy Galey is running for reelection. 

Galey was raised in Alamance County and was elected as Alamance County commissioner in 2016. She was chair of the Alamance County Board of Commissioners from 2017-20. She was elected to the state senate for District 25. 

Galey also said she is working to change public school system funding allotment. She said charter schools have proven to be successful because they have more flexibility with their funds, but this has not been translated back to public schools. 

“The charter school movement was partly premised on the idea that it would be an innovation lab, a way to look at different parts of education in new ways,” Galey said. “And they have, and they've shown some great improvements, but those have not been translated back to traditional public education.”

During her tenure, Galey also sponsored the Parent’s Bill of Rights — a law that expanded right for North Carolina parents to be notified if their child changes pronouns at school, creates policies for parents to review, allows for parents to challenge school material, prohibits instruction on “gender identify, sexual activity, or sexuality” for students in kindergarten through fourth grade — which passed in 2023.

The bill has caused controversy over limiting teachers’ autonomy in the classroom, which Galey said comes behind parents’ wishes.

“When we have a choice between the parents knowing what's going on in the classroom, the parents being advised of their rights and having a way to exercise them that is communicated to them, versus teacher autonomy, I'm going to choose the parents and their ability to advocate for their children,” Galey said. 

Galey said during her time as county commissioner, she had repeatedly brought up the mold issue at schools throughout the Alamance-Burlington School System. Last summer, mold was found in 32 of the 36 ABSS schools, causing spending of $225 million total to repair. She said she brought it up at several commissioner meetings to the head of operations for ABSS, and her concerns were brushed off. 

“The idea that it was the county commissioners fault — that the mold was an issue — really did not sit well with me at all, because it just absolutely was not true,” Galey said. “There's been a history of ABSS staff not using the money or brushing off concerns about the safety of the buildings and the maintenance of the buildings.”

However, Galey said the district is looking to turn around with the hiring of the new superintendent and holding staff accountable. 

Galey also secured funding for the district for the 2021-22 budget, including $15 million for an emergency services facility in Alamance County, $15.8 million for water and sewer projects in Burlington and more. 

Galey said she works to serve all of her constituents — even those who did not vote for her. 

“I represent all the people in my district, no matter whether they voted for me or not, and it's very important to me that the people of my district know that they can contact me if they have a concern or a problem, and they will be listened to,” Galey said. “That's why we're here. We're here to help people break through the bureaucracy and make the bureaucracy work for the people that work hard to pay the taxes that support it.”

Donna Vanhook

Donna Vanhook ’07 is running for North Carolina State senator for District 25. 

Vanhook was elected as a supervisor for Alamance County’s soil and water conservation commission in 2022. Prior, she was a law enforcement officer, and she has graduate degrees in theology and nonprofit management, which she said will help her if she were to be elected. 

“I do a lot of community work as a community strategist. I'm on the ground a lot, talking to people, knowing what the issues are first hand, and finding ways in order to fund things that we could improve on,” Vanhook said. “If there's a gap in services in Alamance County, I'm able to verbalize that with the persons who are providing services, and we try to make ways in which to fund them.”

Vanhook said she wants to change the voucher system — a way for families to pay for tuition, transportation and other expenses for private schools. 

“There was a constructed and systematic way that funding was being diverted from the public schools, and I think it would continue and get worse, so that many public schools may end up closing,” Vanhook said.

Along with doing away with the voucher system, Vanhook said she wants to repeal the Parent’s Bill of Rights that State Sen. Amy Galey passed in 2023.

“It's infringing upon what schools can be doing, and rather than taking time to make a notification to numerous parents about things that they had not been having to do,” Vanhook said.

Vanhook said one of her strengths is understanding the struggles her constituents go through, while other people may not. 

“Unfortunately, we have some people who are in the General Assembly who have no idea how to relate to persons who may have experienced poverty or may have experienced days when they lost their job and didn't know how they were going to get their next meal,” Vanhook said. “There are some people that just cannot relate to that, and they may be ones that are maybe writing bills that are against persons who don't have the resources they need, or lack the access to those resources, well, then I have a problem with that.”

Vanhook said she is running based off a passion to help people. 

“I am already an elected official, and I could have been good with that. However, I found that I have a passion to do some things that are more efficient and more supportive of young people in public schools as well,” Vanhook said. “I have a passion to do that, and I think we need a change in leadership, quite frankly.”