Beaufort County School Board meeting May 2, 2023
Bridges Math Curriculum Approved
One item on the agenda at the May 2, 2023 Beaufort County school board meeting was the vote to approve the math curriculum Bridges for K-5 grades. There was a good bit of discussion advocating for and against this new math curriculum. Those aligned against it cited the inclusion of Common Core math, which was removed from the NC Standards in 2017. Dr. Parker explained the teachers will be instructed to skip over Common Core related instruction. Board member Mack Hodges remarked that he is concerned this new math curriculum could be like another curriculum the board purchased a few years ago. He did not mention the name but was likely referring to Wit and Wisdom, which was purchased prior to Dr. Matthew Cheeseman being selected as the current superintendent. Wit and Wisdom was sold to another local school system upon Dr. Cheeseman’s arrival. Another point that Dr. Parker made was the contract for Bridges is for one year and may be renewed each year thereafter. Should the school board desire to discontinue Bridges, the board can do so without penalties. These assurances allowed the board to approve the purchase by a seven to two vote.
Senate Bill 670 Will Cut Beaufort County Public School Funding
Dr. Cheeseman reported to the board that a bill the NC Legislature is considering S 670. This bill if passed will consolidate all state funding to local school districts into one allocation as opposed to the more than 20 allocations now in effect. Dr. Cheeseman indicated this would likely result in over $1M in reduced funding to Beaufort County. State Senator Jim Perry, (R) from Kinston is a sponsor of this bill. The board members were requested to call Senator Perry to express their opposition to this legislation. Dr. Cheeseman said this bill would reduce the state allocations to several counties in the southeast. If passed and signed by the Governor, the board will have less than two months to react to this funding change method as it is set to take effect in the next fiscal year which starts July 1, 2023.
Some of you will recall a few weeks back during a public meeting, the three new board members were chastised for communicating with Representative Keith Kidwell. This tongue lashing went on for 40 minutes culminating in a motion to restrict any board member from communicating with any elected official without board approval. It turned out that only one board member communicated with Rep Kidwell and this was after he was contacted by Rep Kidwell seeking more information on the Hillsdale College Social Studies curriculum. This curriculum is not on the approved list of the NC DPI.
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Jim Crow didn't happen a long time ago.
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This inherited racial guilt business is just utter nonsense. I had a black handyman who used to do some work for me explain how it upset himm saying "I haven't been a slave. I don't know anybody who has been a slave. That all happened a long time ago and makes no difference to today"
The Marxist "Critical Theory" created by Herbert Marcuse, former cheif ideologue of the German Communist Party is where this business of trying to divide society between victims and oppressors comes from. When you spout it, you are being a "good little Marxist". This division into victims and oppressors gets really weird, too, when one considers that before the War Between the States, only about 3 to 5% of whites in the south owned slaves. The rest did not. About 20% of Southern blacks were free blacks and about 10% of them owned slaves themselves. How does your Critical Race Theory deal with descendants of blacks who were slave owners? Your contrived litmus test does not work very well does it? And what about those people, both black and white, whose ancestors arrived after 1865 so that they had no dog in the slavery fight at all? |
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Said the white man.
Look, my group was the oppressor in the context of US history. Knowing that is difficult, but not even close to what the oppressed actually lived through, and in some ways still experience. Are you really such a coward you cant even acknowledge it? Man up. Mistakes were made. Show some some humility. Some humanity for the suffering of others. |
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Some have asked who voted for and against the Bridges math curriculum.
Charles Hickman III - against Donald Shreve - against Gary Carlton - for Terry Draper - for TW Allen - for Terry Williams - for Carolyn Walker - for Elthe Booth - for Mack Hodges - for |
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History should be taught from an AMERICAN perspective, not a globalist perspective or a woke perspective, and it should be taught honestly. Different groups should not be pigeonholed as "victims" or "oppressors" to fit some extremist political narrative. Evertything in life does NOT revolve around race, except to the racists on each side, and the leftwing race hustlers like you, Bib, are as much racist as the KKK.
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You mean from a "white" perspective.
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When I grew up, they still taught real history from an American perspective in the schools. When I see the woke propaganda being sold to school children today, it makes me angry. I don't know which course is the best, but most of the big education companies seem to play to the big liberal states and what they produce is just not appropriate.
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Members of the extreme left like you only want history / social studies courses that politically indoctrinate children with your ideology. If it is not full of the woke doctrines of CRT, DEI, and ESG, and even the 1619 Project you do not want it.
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Nobody in their right mind would adopt the Hillsdale College anything.
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Board Chairman T.W. Allen got his comeupance over his shrill attacks on the three conservative school board members concerning legislation to authorize the traditional Hillsdale College social studies curriculum. After a parade of leftwing Democrat legislators called Allen to protest that bill, Allen became the mouthpiece of those lefties to attack the conservative members for their supposed role in that bill. As it turned our that role of those conservative members in that legislation was minimal.
It also turned out that legally, such legislatiion was not even necessary. The board already has the legal authority to adopt the Hillsdale curriculum if it chooses to. Allen parroting the crap from these Democrat legislators is an outrage to Beaufort County parents. |
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That tape shows we have a bunch of pathetic seat warmers on our school board, who are yes men / women for the superintendant and his minions. Some have an "R" by their names but do not seem to be much of real Republicans. Some are openly Democrat. A few seem to really care, but they are a minority of the board.
That Dr. Phillips told them last meeting that the Bridges curriculum was "not common core". This meeting they had to admit that Bridges website boasts about how their curriculum actually aligns with Common Core. Was Phillips just uninformed last meeting or was he deliberately trying to mislead them? Neither answer speaks well for our school bureaucracy. Watching some of the school board members dance around why they would still vote for a curriculum that aligns with the failed Common Core AND contains woke "social justice" components would be amusing if it were not sad for our students. So, "experience teachers" might delete the social justice dogma? What about less experienced teachers or those who buy the leftwing dogma of the radical NCAE? Experienced teachers might take out some of the Common Core elements? What about inexperienced teachers or lazy teachers or teachers who think they need to follow what is given to them? The parents of Beaufort County were offered silly excuses, not a solid math curriculum free of political indoctrination and without the failed Common Core which damages students math ability. |
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Kemi Badenoch, a black woman serving in Boris Johnson's cabinet called Critical Race Theory "a dangerous trend in race relations" in a speech on the floor of the House of Commons that was called "the speech of the year" in the UK. You can hear the most acclaimed part of that speech here: www.youtube.com