Comments for Insanity by the Beaufort County School Board | Eastern North Carolina Now

The driving force behind this unneeded school is the Superintendant, who wants it for a resume item for when he seeks to move up to a larger and better paying school system. It is really about building a resume to benefit an individual, not building a school to benefit students. The sad part is that the majority of our school board are weak and easily controlled yes-men and yes-women who function as puppets of the superintendant. We need new school board members who will represent the voters and taxpayers instead of just representing the superintendant and his interests. This is particularly essential when we have a superintendant who is a total control freak like Cheeseman.

Commented: Monday, January 15th, 2024 @ 5:38 am By: Concerned Taxpayer

I may have missed this information but I’m curious, if Eastern is demolished and it will take two years to construct the new school, where do the students from Eastern go in the meantime?

Commented: Sunday, January 14th, 2024 @ 7:46 pm By: Will Simmons

Better?

Commented: Saturday, October 28th, 2023 @ 3:35 pm By: Big Bob

Part of the curriculum problem in Beaufort County Schools rests with the Curriculum Director. On the Bridges math curriculum, he was specifically asked if it was Common Core and told the School Board that it was not. Subsequent research showed that in fact it was Common Core and that fact was not too difficult to uncover.

The question is, did our Curriculum Director just not know that, or did he know about it and choose to misrepresent the facts? The first scenario would indicate incompetence in his job and the second would indicate dishonesty. Either way, he is clearly NOT someone the school board can rely on in the curriculum process. He may be loyal flunky to Cheeseman, but not someone the board should rely upon.

Commented: Saturday, October 28th, 2023 @ 11:53 am By: Conservative Voter

Concerned Taxpayer is correct. Also all parents are in and out of neighborhood schools more. They see teachers and staff more and can see first hand what is going on in the school. In most small schools virtually no one has heard of the Superintendent but everyone knows the Principal.

Commented: Saturday, October 28th, 2023 @ 11:08 am By: Hood Richardson

Big Bob, You sound like another fake Christion pacifist. Stand up for truth line a Christian should. You are on the negative side with your arguments. Flip positive your will feel better and be able to sleep at night.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 6:03 pm By: Hood Richardson

An essential step for change in our schools is getting a solid curriculum, something that is totally under the control of elected local school board members. Unfortunately, too many of them want to bury their heads in the sand and lets others exercise that function and they just rubberstamp the result. That is a big part of what is wrong with our schools.

There are guidelines and recommendations from the state Board of Education, appointed by the governor, but that board is dominated by hard core leftists appointed by Governor Cooper and they are a big part of the problem. Weak minded local officials too often just follow their lead.

Big textbook / curriculum companies tend to pander to the liberal states with their products, making them full of "woke". A few states have stood up at a state level and said "NO" to these companies and insisted on non-woke curricula. Florida is a champion in this and Texas has also made great strides.

We need a school board that will take the bull by the horns on curricula. Our local board in the face of community opposition sidelined the "woke" Savvas social studies curriculum, but it is hard to tell what they are doing on that presently. Then they adopted the Bridges math curriculum which is not only Common Core but also packed with "woke". They claimed they would just not teach the Common Core part, but that was a lie because Common Core math assignments are coming home as homework. One was posted on this site.

Yes, Gary, brainwashed new teachers from universities are a problem, but the bigger problem, which is totally under the control of elected school board members, is having a woke curriculum. We need action, not words on that.

At present Cheeseman appoints the committees that recommend curricula. He has total control of that process. If he appoints too many younger teachers who have been recently indoctrinated in universities, then everyone should expect a "woke" result.

Oh, and good luck in your city council race. Too many on the city council, like on the school board, are low energy people who just go with the flow. Sadler has his set of poodles on the city council just like Chesseman has his set of poodles on the school board. We need energetic and informed public officials who make up their own minds.

Commented: Saturday, October 28th, 2023 @ 9:23 am By: John Steed

School children had far higher scores in my day, and most of my class certainly were no angels, but, these youngsters were very hirable due to a suitable intellect and a strong work ethic.

We need to do all it takes to return to those standards, and then go beyond.

This is the information age, right? Children need to be better informed.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 3:33 pm By: Stan Deatherage

A bit of house keeping for those Guest Commenters using SNI's Eastern NC NOW Platform: We do NOT allow anyone - our members or gust commenters - to submit fake emails when commenting as Guest Commenters, or Members.

Over the years, I have relaxed standards to allow Guest Comments, but the emails must be real. Without a real email, I am incurring a liability standard on many fronts, and undue liability in a nonessential entity I will not tolerate, therefore, I will be testing all red flagged emails for validity.

Thank-you in advance for understanding the reality of proper standards here at SNI's Eastern NC NOW.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 3:22 pm By: Stan Deatherage

Stan says he likes school of choice. Well that is agreeable but you are talking segregation. Hood is discussing parents and drugs glad you brought drugs up Hood. As a tax paying (on time) citizen of Beaufort County I propose the Commissioners and School Board submit to random drug testing. We need to know that the people controlling our tax dollars are drug free and pay taxes on time.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 2:22 pm By: Smarter than Hood

Prendiegirl, you must have missed what was happening all over the country in school board elections. There has been a vast earthquake of turning out do-nothing board members for those pledged to take a meat ax to "woke". What is driving this is that with students at home during Covid, parents saw the crap that was in their curriculum and became angry. School boards even in major urban counties are being replaced with conservatives who want to end the "woke" garbage. It is even impacting other elections, like in Virginia, where it was a key factor in electing Republicans to all statewide offices.

Here in North Carolina, a poll by the Civitas Institute found that 71% of North Carolina parents were concerned about indoctrination of their children in the public schools. That says a lot about why voters are turning against "business as usual" school board members who just go along with whatever the education establishment puts forward.

I know that there is a little political cult that sees Hood Richardson hiding behind every bush, but Hood Derangement Syndrome (which is like Trump Derangement Syndrome) is not the explanation of voters turning to known conservatives in Beaufort County or any other school board elections.

Many conservatives, including myself and former State Representative Sandy Hardy helped encourage conservative candidates to run in the last school board election. All of those elected were strong personalities who stand on principle and are not led around by anyone. They research the issues themselves and make up their own minds.

I know that there is one of the school board members up next year who at least has a heart in the right place on school issues, but it takes more than that. It takes a backbone to stand up against the "woke" agenda. That aspect is still to be determined, as there will probably still be opportunities to show the presence or absence of such backbone. There are also two liberal Democrats on the board who will not deviate from woke and need to be replaced.

If you really want to credit the person most responsible for pushing for a better school board in Beaufort County, that would be former Belhaven Mayor Adam Oneal. Adam first got involved with education issues in helping parents fight some of the stupid Covid policies in the county schools, and went on to pick up on other concerns of parents.

We still have a school board that adopts common core math injected with "woke" for its math curriculum. The county schools curriculum direstor falsely told the board that the Bridges curriculum was not common core, and when people researched it and found out it was, he had to admit that it was. There is more work to be done. Parents, conservative school board members, and conservative legislators have been fighting common core math for years since it first showed up in our state.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 1:33 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Smarter than Hood: I like the concept of Community Schools for a variety of reasons, not least of which will be that these community facilities should become a valuable resource now that School Choice is beginning to evolve as all worthy planned policies must.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 10:13 am By: Stan Deatherage

My only comment is Hood cannot even copy off a paper the correct scores and write an article. This by itself explains why he should not be in government. I would like to see his community school plan and the cost? Oh yea he is just running his mouth as usual and has no facts other than he feels that way. Well guess what Hood this county is where t is today because of people like you. You have never wanted the county to grow and prosper. As a commissioner you have lost more full time residents than any other commissioner. Just think about that for one moment!! Hood look in the mirror you are the biggest issue telling untruths about the commissioners and school board. I hope these members call you out and make you look like the fool you really are.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 8:04 am By: Smarter than Hood

While there may be a few hard left types like yourself among parents who actually want their kids proseletized into woke ideology, most parents don't want that for their kids, and it is the wishes of that mainstream that need to be protected.

Commented: Friday, October 27th, 2023 @ 8:36 am By: Conservative Voter

I didn’t say they were incompetent however it would be better if they didn’t get their instructions from others before meetings. I hope they are trying to do a good job.

Commented: Thursday, October 26th, 2023 @ 7:26 pm By: Prendiegirl

Which parents?

Commented: Thursday, October 26th, 2023 @ 3:45 pm By: Big Bob

Prendie Girl: Are you suggesting that recently elected (2022 election) school board members are "patsies, Hoodites?"

Hood Richardson encouraged the candidacy of most of the these recently elected school board members. Does that make these school board members less than competent?

Commented: Thursday, October 26th, 2023 @ 9:52 am By: Stan Deatherage