Cheeseman guts much of school board curriculum reform | Eastern North Carolina Now

After two woke curricula were presented to the Beaufort County School Board, one in social studies and one in math, the three conservative school board members launched an effort to reform the curriculum process.  One objective was bringing in genuine parent involvment in the process and the other was to give board members more involvement in choosing the curriculum.  It was always an uphill process due to the six board members who are little more than rubberstamps for superintendant, Matthew Cheeseman, a California liberal.

In the end, it was Cheeseman who read off what he would accept, gutting much of what the conservative board members had tried to do.  Cheeseman's language was likely either written or influenced by the Durham liberal Democrat activist who Cheeseman had brought in as the school board attorney.

A big thing lost was meaningful parent involvement in the curriculum process. This is important because recently polling shows 71% of North Carolina parents are concerned about political indoctrination of their children in the public schools.

Under the Cheeseman language, there will be a window dressing of parents chosen and directed by school administrators as part of the curriculum committee.  The original draft had called for a community standards committee of one parent from each school board district chosen by the board to give their input on whether a proposed curriculum met local community standards.

Teaching of cursive writing, multiplication tables, and America's founding documents and founding fathers was also cut by Cheeseman.  When the process started the curriculum policy had a weak reference to founding documents, but even that has now been deleted.  The conservative board members had tried to insert robust language on teaching each of these things.

Cheeseman also deleted even a general reference to curriulum respecting local community standards.  Instead, he inserted strong language to demand adherence to the standards of the ultra-liberal state school board and DPI, who are the sources of the very political indoctrination opposed by parents.

The new curriculum policy did make a few steps forward.  The language from the conservatives that allows the board to have approval of the curriculum committee members, give direction to the curriculum committee, and to be given three proposals to consider instead of a single proposal to rubberstamp as the process had worked was allowed by Cheeseman.

Another advance that was less than desired was in keeping the board informed on what the curriculum development committee was doing.  Cheeseman also rewrote that language to make a central office staff member responsible for that, but the central office staff member designated has a history of not being forthcoming with the school board.  That staff member had falsely told the school board that the recommended Savvas woke social studies curriculum was the only one approved by DPI.  He also falsely told the school board that the Bridges math curriculum was "not Common Core" only to have to reverse himself at the next meeting after board members and community members had researched it and found out that it was Common Core.

The problem with the state school board was illustrated a couple of years ago when its ultra-liberal majority appointed by Gov. Cooper rammed through a woke state social studies curriculum.  This was vigorously and vocally opposed by Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who serve on the state school board by virtue of their offices, but they were outvoted by Cooper's ultra-liberals.  It is that woke agenda that Cheeseman demands we follow.

This all adds up to a crying need to replace Cheeseman's flunkies on the school board this November and get some new members who will stand up for parents and our local community.