Comments | Eastern NC Now

One can only hope that Snowden will not be mauled to death by Cheeseman's pack of School Board poodles. That would be pathetic, if the poodles stay on Cheeseman's leash and destroy this school.

Commented: Monday, May 26th, 2025 @ 11:49 am By: Conservative Voter

Traitor Thom Tillis is stabbing us in the back again on this wind / solar boondoggle. We need to take him OUT of office in 2026, hopefully in the primary, but if necessary in the general election.

Commented: Monday, May 26th, 2025 @ 8:59 am By: Rino Hunter

The movement to consolidate schools is not favored by most citizens. Most citizens lucky enough to have a community school want to preserve it. Moving schools out of small communities, like Aurora, may well be an inconvenience to some, but to working families or broken families it could be devastating. Yesterday it was high school consolidations, then John A. Wilkenson entirely. Next will be the community schools in Chocowinity. On and on. We've seen the ivory tower studies that look more like sales brochures and the newspaper editorials wanting to consolidate into one or two county schools. One step leads to another step. Eventually, this type of movement will affect all of us. Then what? All of us do not have the option of homeschooling or paying for private schools. We're paying for public schools now. Are consolidation plans like this really trying to serve the public?

Commented: Monday, May 26th, 2025 @ 6:42 am By: Van Zant

Steed: I can go along with that but, if he were as smart as he claims to be, he would be pushing renovation and revitalization along with building two or three more smaller public charter schools for the price of one mega-school. What Super wouldn't compromise on that deal? If he's for real and the whole thing wasn't completely Kabuki theater, he might bite.


SD: Bruh, I love y'all but Unca Hood said he hasn't been into a school in over twenty years and went on about unrealistic class sizes in today's time. Notice I said, today's time.

I agree with him on some points, within his philosophy, but the points he made didn't translate well with a 2025 audience. Ronnie Milsap could have even seen it. Y'all remained loyal but Jesus...that was painful to watch, hoss.

Everybody can't send their child across the river, slam over to Bath or to Washington Montessori.....we've got to meet in the middle without jacking taxes through the roof.

Commented: Sunday, May 25th, 2025 @ 7:01 pm By: John Valley

Washingtonian: All school buildings come back to the county commissioners as a first right of refusal situation, where we could buy the school building back as cheaply as would be possible.

If I was in the majority of Right-Thinking-Majority, the smart plan would to buy all school buildings back, and then decrease what the schools are given the next year so it is a hypothetical wash.

Then keep the school buildings to sell or lease to possible charter schools, and, or possible private schools.

This would help all concerned, especially the public schools, those that absolutely need whatever impetus there is available to learn to manage far more efficiently.

Commented: Sunday, May 25th, 2025 @ 2:35 pm By: Stan Deatherage

John Valley, the difficulty is that efficiently maintaining and improving your existing schools does not shine on a superintendent's resume for that next job in a bigger system like consolidating schools does. Superintendents are constantly building their resumes and too often school board members just sit there fat, dumb, and happy while they do it. The parents and taxpayers are poorly served by such "lost in space" school board members.

Commented: Sunday, May 25th, 2025 @ 1:36 pm By: John Steed

With personal politics aside, again, my biggest takeaway from all of this is that if we've had the money to start the process of renovation and improving the human element within our schools.....why in the holy hell hasn't the money been signed off on by anyone?

That perplexes me greatly as a common sense thinker.

It would be a hell of a lot more cost efficient, especially on the tax payer, if you invested money in necessary projects...to get more money for more projects pertaining to school renovations & improvement. An army moves on its stomach. If you don't feed it, it doesn't move.

Community public charter schools would work in rural Beaufort County regions and be very successful...if the money was behind it but nobody from either side seems to find common ground on that. Martin County has the edge on Western Beaufort County and that can't be gotten back.

Bear Grass Charter School is up there with Chocowinity Primary and Bath Elementary. They are great models of human element.

Commented: Sunday, May 25th, 2025 @ 12:17 pm By: John Valley

The problem is that we have too many school board members who are Cheeseman's poodles They don't think for themselves. They are not doing their jobs for the people of Beaufort County when they just rubberstamp whatever Cheeseman wants. Cheeseman is just out to build his resume for his next job, and he clearly wants to have "school consolidation" on that resume. School board members who go along with that are just idiots.

As far as improving education outcomes, it is curriculum that matters more than buildings, and Cheeseman and his poodles have been blocking reform there, too.

Commented: Sunday, May 25th, 2025 @ 10:00 am By: Conservative Voter

Ceres: I also saw the video from the budget workshop and, like yourself, found several performances to be very embarrassing, angering and reminiscent of low budget B-movie acting.

The recurring motif of this meeting, that some didn't seem to understand for reasons known/unknown, was: "We're losing more students than we're taking in and this trend hasn't just started."

In all honesty, Mr. Randy (Walker) made the most sense out of anybody and really hit the nail on the head when he talked about "improving the human element within the school system".

Building two mega-schools or trying to plunder the western side of rural BoCo isn't going to solve the problem; you've got two sides avoiding the main issue that implicates a group in the middle...that's playing both sides. It's like a Monty Python skit on acid, it's stupifying.

To lower taxes, existing structures should be brought up to code and expanded upon. They need to be brought from 1967 to 2025. The human element needs light.

Commented: Sunday, May 25th, 2025 @ 9:13 am By: John Valley

Whatley, like Tillis would be certain to be a tax and spend Republican. Indeed, with his background as a paid mouthpiece for special interests, Whatley may even be worse.

Tillis' key assistance to Biden's big spending spree should never be forgotten or forgiven. Along with other Biden Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Tillis voted to let Biden's big spending fake "Infrastructure" bill pass through the normal process. That was bad enough in and of itself, but it set up something even worse. It preserved the "reconciliation" slot that year for Biden to pass the outrageous Green New Deal disguised as the "inflation Reduction Act."

Tillis has disqualified himself from consideration by fiscal conservatives because of his fingerprints all over Biden's big spending spree. Whatley would probably be even worse. Surely the NCGOP has somebody we can rally around and get excited about for 2026, but this badly flawed pair are NOT it.

This Don Brown, however, sounds interesting. I would like to learn more about him.

Commented: Saturday, May 24th, 2025 @ 2:57 pm By: Concerned Taxpayer

Tillis has been horrible on immigration issues due to his being a flunky for special interests. Whatley has even stronger ties to special interests. He is just as objectionable as Tillis. We should avoid either of these clowns.

Commented: Saturday, May 24th, 2025 @ 10:06 am By: borderhawk