Comments | Eastern NC Now

Van Zant, the Southside hearing was procedurally a huge improvement over the travesty of a hearing held at Snowden. When I served as a political appointee in the Jim Martin administration, I had a lot of experience with public hearings held by boards and commissions under the NC Department of Health and Human Services, where I served as the General Counsel. I would monitor public hearings of boards like the NC Social Services Commission, the NC Child Day Care Commission, and the NC Mental Health Commission for the department. I never saw anything like the circus at Snowden.

First, there was a lengthy advocacy speech by the superintendent before it was opened to the public. That was very inappropriate. Second, the superintendent tried to limit the public to questions rather than comments, until one speaker pushed back on that and went on with comments. That was inappropriate in the extreme to try to limit the public to questions. I have also never seen the people who are supposed to be listening to the comments to decide their course of action, the policymakers, hiding in the crowd instead of out front facing the public. That was inappropriate as well. All of those aspects were corrected for the hearing at Southside.

The other real oddity was the lack of legal counsel. When I was in the Marin administration, if I had a schedule conflict for one of these board or commission public hearings, I sent another attorney from my staff. Maybe when you have a school board attorney who is halfway across the state, it makes it logistically difficult to have him on hand, but that is just one more reason why it is better to have a local attorney representing the school board. They are more available for critical public hearings like this, as well as for things like riding herd on a massive school construction project.

Also, the report at the regular school board meeting on transportation lacked credibility because it was delivered as an advocacy speech rather than straight facts. When someone goes all over the landscape to try to justify something it raises real questions as to why. When that "report" started with ride times at district high schools and went on at length before ever getting to the subject at hand, it destroyed credibility.

Commented: Saturday, May 31st, 2025 @ 1:54 pm By: Steven P. Rader

What politician would be so mean-spirited to put little children, 5,6,and 7 years old on these long bus rides? That will damage their education and it is unconscionable. That may not be a problem for high school age children, but anyone who has had young children knows how harmful that would be. Do these politicians just not care?

Commented: Saturday, May 31st, 2025 @ 9:03 am By: Victoria

Ending the migrant crisis is a key part of the Reform Party's surge in support. Both Labour and Conservatives failed to dent the problem in recent years. Now that Reform is in control of a number of local governments, they are going to start refusing to take any more illegal alien migrants in those local areas. It is not their only big issue, as they also want to end the Net Zero climate madness and to cut taxes, but it is their most important one.

Commented: Saturday, May 31st, 2025 @ 9:11 am By: borderhawk

Freedoms are not free, and Woke Europe is "pissing" theirs away.

This Constitutional Republic of the Americas will NEVER be Woke again!

Commented: Saturday, May 31st, 2025 @ 8:24 am By: Stan Deatherage

RMB: It is a fairly simple analogy here as to why Superintendent Cheeseman "still has his job": 1. He is "twice Superintendent of the Year" from the NC School Superintendents Association from the SE Alliance's Council of Superintendents, which is concerning because Beaufort County is, of course, a northeastern county in North Carolina; 2. Much of the Beaufort County School Board is clearly not engaged as to what is their charge within their elected office.

Commented: Friday, May 30th, 2025 @ 10:29 pm By: Stan Deatherage

You hit the nail on the head, Buzz. There has been no proper long range planning by the School Board or by the superintendent. It is all thrown together at the last minute. Heck, there has not even been proper short range planning. Look at Cheeseman's failure to discover that they did not own 4 acres of where they wanted to put the new mega elementary in Washington and had to scramble at the last minute, costing taxpayers half a million dollars. It is like we have the Three Stooges running things in the county schools.

And Frankie Waters in the mix? The same Frankie Waters who bankrupted Tri County Telephone during the years he ran that so its carcass had to be sold to an out of county company. THAT Frankie Waters? taxpayers are in real trouble.

Commented: Friday, May 30th, 2025 @ 3:52 pm By: Concerned Taxpayer

Mr. Pyle, you are absolutely correct. Frankie Waters, Chairman of the County Commissioners already proposed this in an article published in the Washington Daily News on April 10th this year. He was probably already contemplating this with, or without, the superintendent prior to this article appearing. However, I would posit that it was a joint effort on the part of both. Remember that Frankie was already working backroom deals to obtain the money to build the new consolidated school in Washington without the knowledge or the Board of Commissioners or the School Board. That money would have been better spent south of the river if consolidation for truly practical reasons is the ultimate goal beyond being a bullet point on a resume. Neither of these two are fiscally responsible or capable of competent long term planning or management. However, they are masters at, and more than happy to spend our county's taxpayer dollars on unnecessary projects for personal benefit while simultaneously violating the statutes that are supposed to protect us from this type of behavior.

Commented: Friday, May 30th, 2025 @ 3:06 pm By: David Hudson

Buzz, the "superintendent problem" is endemic in the public schools. I remember in my first year in law school almost fifty years ago when State Senator Dick Deeb (R-Pinellas) commented to a political meeting I attended that "too many school board members think the superintendent is their boss instead of their employee". That seems to sum up too much of public education, where the bureaucrats rule and the elected policy makers sit quiet.

Senator Deeb had a solution. He introduced a bill in the Florida Senate to make the office of public school superintendent of Pinellas County elected by the voters of the county, not appointed by the school board. The bill passed the Senate but when it got to the House, a number of legislators realized they had the superintendent problem in their county, too, and a bunch of counties got added to the bill. That bogged it down and it never made it out of the House.

In some counties with solid conservative school board majorities, they have no problem in standing up to a superintendent whose proposals they disagree with. The Craven County School Board, this year voted down their superintendent's proposed budget, for example.

I remember back when I was in high school and an undergraduate at Duke and we had a split school board in Mecklenburg County where I then lived. The three newest members had been elected by the conservative Concerned Parents Association and there were four moderate to liberal holdovers from the previous cycle. The superintendent kept ignoring the three conservatives. Then one meeting, the superintendent made a report that was very adverse to an issue dear to the heart of the most moderate of the holdover members. Conservative Jane Scott saw her chance when she saw the reaction on his face, so she immediately moved to fire the superintendent, the upset moderate seconded, and it passed 4 to 3.

As long as the career path of school superintendents is to move from one county to another, to larger counties with better paying positions, I think the superintendent problem will remain. The solution is to elect strong school board members who remember they are the boss, not the superintendent, and keep a firm hand on the tiller themselves.

When the time comes again in Beaufort County, another solution to the problem is to look for a superintendent looking for his last posting at a place he wishes to retire. That way, we should get a superintendent more interested in truly serving our county instead of mainly advancing his career.

Commented: Friday, May 30th, 2025 @ 1:30 pm By: Steven P. Rader

How does this Cheesehead still have a job?

Commented: Friday, May 30th, 2025 @ 11:34 am By: Richard Marvin Butkus

This is ALL about Cheeseman building his resume for that next job. School consolidation is trendy with the education establishment. He does not give a tinkers damn about the kids in Beaufort County, which he will be leaving for greener (better paying) pastures. All be wants is something for his resume. And we have too many pathetic school board members who kowtow to the Big Cheese instead of working for the parents and taxpayers.

Commented: Friday, May 30th, 2025 @ 11:11 am By: Rino Hunter

Great post on the inadequacy of governance on the Beaufort County School Board in what should be the proper administration of our public schools.

In this new age of an evolving School Choice plan for all North Carolina's tax payers, the Beaufort County Schools are on a poor course to provide leadership, fiscal and otherwise.

Now, here is my word of advice to whatever nominal "Republicans" out of nine board members, who are rumored to be Republicans. If, as a school board member, you are a Republican, I would strenuously advise that you act like one. Politics can be a rough sporting play here in Beaufort County, NC, and it would behoove all Republicans, real and otherwise, to learn how to act as if their hearts and brains are wired well together, and are significantly in the right place going henceforward.

Commented: Friday, May 30th, 2025 @ 10:52 am By: Stan Deatherage