Observer Editorial: The School Board needs to re-think how it plays politics.
Our School Board has created something of a brouhaha over the upcoming school board elections. You can watch the show they put on at: School Board seeks to hide behind teachers and staff.
Now understand please what is behind all this. It was a political campaign mailer that went out from the Beaufort County Conservative Club. The mailer was an open solicitation of support (and donations) to support conservative candidates running against certain incumbent school board members running in this year’s elections (primary and general election). We don’t think anyone who got a mailer believed it came from anyone except the clearly identified mailer and the Conservative Club. To say otherwise is truly an insult.
It should go without saying, but these school board members, who voted for this retaliation resolution, do not understand that is not their role as elected officials to use an official meeting to campaign to save their seats. Let us repeat. This was an official meeting. It was a regular school board meeting. As such there was no place for political grandstanding such as we saw here.
If these school board members wish to campaign against the Conservative Club mailer, or any mailer, that is fine. But they are wrong, and possibly legally liable, to use official school board meetings, and all the trappings that go with such meetings, to engage in partisan politics.
Someone, (perhaps the Superintendent or School Board Attorney) should tell these board members (and particularly the Chairman) that official School Board meetings should be free of politics as much as possible. There is no place here for select school board members to use their visibility in an official meeting to engage in partisan political activity.
One picky point. A couple of members, including the Chairman, attempted to cast this as a resolution in support of teachers. But the wording of the Resolution betrays this position. If you think about it, if you carry this argument made in support of the resolution presented by the Chairman, to its logical conclusion then it would be hard to imagine any restraint to any resolution, on any subject, that may be brought by anyone in the future that uses school system resources, including board meeting time.
The point here can be simply stated: The School Board should stick to school business in its meetings. And where school business intersects with politics then politics should be excluded.
Let us offer an example. Review the comments made in the video by Terry Williams. Then ask yourself: “What legitimate board interest is there that compels his comments?” Self-aggrandizement perhaps, but that is not a legitimate board interest. On balance, his comments must be fairly construed as self-serving, not in the furtherance of a legitimate educational function of a school board member.
Similarly, the notion that this resolution and consumption of meeting time, was warranted to express appreciation for teachers and staff, begs the question of why would that worthy objective be entangled in a political issue (electing school board members)? That is actually a real insult to teachers and staff. They are being used a political pawns by these school board members. How much more disgusting can you get?
So, what this issue really comes down to is a blatant example of an official body and some of its members trying to suppress dissent against action the school board has taken or failed to take. Applied to its logical conclusion, no one nor any organization would ever be able to express disagreement with anything this board does or fails to do. Thus, in our view this whole imbroglio was a blatant attempt to suppress opposition to something this school board has done or failed to do.
Perhaps this Board should immediately proceed to consider a formal policy that clearly defines what is legitimate political activity on school time and property. Such a policy should include, at least, a prohibition of the use of school resources in the furtherance of political activity. And such prohibition should apply to individual school board members.
Comments
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Big Bob said:
( January 23rd, 2024 @ 1:07 pm )
MAGA is not yet in charge of the school board. If they take over, it will be short lived. They cant govern, but it will be a total mess, at least for a little while. Not worth it.
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Enjoyed reading this article, especially since I agree with it!!!
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John: It is my well considered opinion that the majority governing the school board is very similar in political /governing ambitions as the majority of the Commissioners ruling Beaufort County.
That is not a tenable condition with so many ten of millions of public dollars being tossed about on a per annum basis. |
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Stan, the only "staff" that this political stunt was intended to protect was Cheeseman and maybe a few of his top underlings tied to his woke stuff, like Dr. Parker who told the school board meeting that the Bridges math curriculum was not Common Core, only to have to reverse himself at the next meeting and admit that it was after various people researched it. The question is - Was Parker just incompetent and did not know the correct answer or was he lying to the board? Either way, why does he still have a job? We have a very weak school board that tolerates too much of this nonsense.
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Van Zant /Bubba: The problem here with this resolution is that it appears to assert the proverbial straw-man-argument, where board members are given only two choices, both pathetically weak as choices, where there is a cloaked self-serving political component, which is relatively irrelevant to the scheme of schools' business, and in this case it was a resolution symbolically stipulating: We are all in this together (a true Democratic Socialist maxim), or you are against us - predominately the staff and the teachers; used as political pawns, employed as a political cudgel.
I have presented many resolutions, the vast majority I personally write, on many issues I feel passionately about that often fail due to the vote swapping machinations of Beaufort County Government's Center-Left Coalition ... Issues such as: Shutting Down the Open Border Policies of Democratic Socialists; Allowing Conceal Carry in Most of Beaufort County's Government Buildings; Opening Up Local Businesses and County Schools during the Covid Years in open Defiance of Authoritarian Cooper; Vigilance of Election Integrity in an Era of Extreme Election Interference, Irregularities and the Perception of Voter Fraud Under the Cover of Covid ... all issues that generally upset Democratic Socialists and RINOs alike. All issues that are, and remain relevant to every voter in Beaufort County, all of which will effect Beaufort County's governing of its people's well being now and long into the future. I cannot see how this controversial resolution has any real merit other than the self-serving politics as usual for politicians that generally move as a single organism, devoid of original thought, depending of the often advisement of others. |
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This was political grandstanding by the Cheeseman supporters on the board of education. They are playing politics and doing it the same way Pelosi does. Politics needs to be done on the campaign trail, not in official meetings. This has nothing at all to do with supporting teachers, but everything to do with supporting Cheeseman.
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Why are the posters that are spewing hate in the comments so concerned about this board resolution. It doesn't make sense that the only board members that have been classroom teachers themselves are being portrayed as against the teachers. It actually seems like those particular board members tried to take the high ground in this stunt scenario.
I believe all this hate is coming from people with a real nasty agenda. There is a lot more going on here than meets the eye. Of course, the real issue here is the nothing burger resolution itself being used as political grandstanding in an official meeting. |
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The Cheeseman fanboy / fangirl who posts as "Bath parent" has it ass backward. It is Cheeseman who is giving the orders and the six members of the CHeeseman faction who are following them. These clueless six don't seem to comprehend that Cheeseman is their employee instead of their boss. It is pathetic to watch Cheeseman giving them hand signals of what to do at board meetings and regularly whispering in the ear of chairman T.W. Allen of what to do.
Most government bodies like the county commission and city council seat their chief bureaucrat, their city or county manager at the staff table where they belong. Only the weak as water school board seats their superintendant up with the elected officials so he can control the action. With the school board, as someone said, the tail is wagging the dog. The elected board members are supposed to be policy makers while the superintendant is supposed to carry out their policy. Instead, our weak school board members are letting our liberal superintendant run the whole show. |
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Bath Parent: We get your point, though I had to cautiously negotiate your syntax to understand its pretext, in which you despise your Bath representative for speaking in favor of proper decorum; however, for the life of me, I can NOT understand the relevance of your declarative statement, "Donald just walk your little dog down the rod and leave our kid and staff alone!!"
Understanding Donald Shreve's commitment to public service, while attending to the care of his diminutive canine, I was left bewildered to discover any relevant point. |
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Will Simmons: Yeah, I just heard that one of the employees of the Washington Daily News was giving lip service, via Facebook video (another bastion of "uncensored truth"), to charge that Eastern NC NOW was "bias", which could, by comparison the WDN, be of some merit since this online publication, unlike the WDN, is certainly biased towards publishing real news and lots of it, including valid dissenting opinions against politicians, providing they are submitted by real people.
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Donald
You read your PAC statement all the time in the meetings as I have seen it myself. You are always worried about your feelings well i as a Bath parent your feelings do not matter since you do not support teachers and staff read the resolution no where does it bash your beloved PAC you owe everything to. |
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Donald I have been to meetings you waste more time reading your statements from the PAC than anyone. You got in to office on lies and you lie more than anyone. I as a parent can prove this and will. You have shamed the staff of the county and I am thrilled they heard your lip service. Donald just walk your little dog down the rod and leave our kid and staff alone!!
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