If we keep doing what we have been doing we will get what we have always gotten—a poor performing school system | Eastern North Carolina Now

By:  Observer Editorial Team

Revised and Updated 9-11-24

We posted an article recently entitled: “Locally Elected Officials, How Important are they?”  Our conclusion was that they are just as important as the Washington, DC politicians and the crowd in Raleigh.  All politicians have a direct effect on our quality of life.  What politicians are not doing is just as important as what they are doing.

We know a lot more about Washington, DC politicians because of the efficiencies of scale of our corrupt and lazy news sources.  That is, news about a national politician can be gathered and broadcast with the same amount of effort as a local or state level politician.  The same effort is required to produce a news piece that is broadcast across the entire United States as is required to produce an article that has interest in only one county.  

There are about 3,500 counties in the United States.  All have almost the same problems with elected officials.  Are the officials honest, are they alert enough to stop the changes the liberals, leftists and socialists are pushing on us every day?  Are they strong enough managers to not allow bureaucrats to impose their will on government policy, thus usurping the will of the voters?

The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners and School Board have become textbook examples of administrative government.  That is, these members are present during meetings but have abandoned the real work of setting policy and forcing out liberal, socialistic and communist dogma and policy. They leave it up to their hired help.

One School Board example of this is allowing Superintendent Cheeseman to make all of the decisions about the building of the new elementary school, with little to no public input or meetings. He is cramming 1,000 students in kindergarten thru the third grade into one building site, with no consideration given to the impacts on the long-term future of education in Beaufort County or the implications for the growth and development of our county.  Modern thinking is moving in the direction that consolidated schools are not good for education.  Cheeseman’s decisions support what we have been against for the last 30 years.  Cross-town bussing is one example.  Why not allow small children to have neighborhood schools?  Neighborhood schools solve a lot of our present education problems.  Closer to home means more parents can be involved in the day-to-day education of students.  We would have fewer behavior issues with parents close by.  

Beyond geography, large schools, particularly at the lower grade levels impose numerous problems for parents and schools.  For example, a K-5 school, and even more so a K-8 school, means it is more convenient for parents to get their children to school than if they have to take one to one school and another to another school(s).  That reduces the costs of the taxpayers having to foot the bill for the extra busing.  Having only one K-3 school in the Washington Attendance means that more very young kids will spend more time being bussed than if the school is closer to where they live.

And that illustrates a major flaw in Superintendent Cheeseman’s planning.  He is making decisions without sound data.  For example, would it not be more efficient to convert the Washington Attendance Area to K-8 neighborhood schools than one large mega-school?  Answer is:   We don’t know.  He does not know.  We do not have an adequate, up-to-date student locator system that would support solid planning for the most efficient placement of any new school(s) and a comparison of busing patterns?  We are being told that Eastern Elementary needs to be demolished.   But we have not seen any engineering study that supports that conclusion.  Would it be less expensive to renovate Eastern and use the remainder to construct a new school west of Washington?  How many students could be accommodated if John Small and P. S. Jones were converted to K-8?  We simply do not know because the planning is inadequate.  

It is absolutely absurd that the School Board and Commissioners would consider spending in excess of 50 million dollars to replace Eastern.   What should be done is hire a good consulting firm to do a facilities study, an up-to-date student locater system, and an analysis of the transportation alternatives.  And while they are at it, this study should include ALL of the schools in the county and a county-wide student assignment plan.   Already we are hearing rumblings about closing Snowden in Aurora.  Replacing Eastern and closing Snowden should be considered as a part of a comprehensive Long-Range Plan for the entire county.  Good planning does not typically cost as much as it saves when done correctly.  The way our Superintendent is going about this is certainly not correct.

What kind of people are sitting on a school board that would allow a Superintendent, not even a native of North Carolina, to make these important decisions for us with less than 4 years of experience in our school system?    We believe the majority of the Beaufort County School Board is just as inept and uncaring as this arrogant Superintendent who believes he has the innate ability to make these decisions for us.

Parents, teachers and the public have been systematically excluded from this planning.  That is a terrible mistake. We would suggest that Dr. Cheeseman put the breaks on this monster and spend some time visiting each school community, using public hearings to listen to what parents think.  He needs strong support from parents, staff and the community for whatever decisions are made.  Ignoring the stakeholders is not going to generate that support.

The School System just crept over the line from being a low performing system.  Most Schools (8) had a “D” rating by the State Department of Education in 2023.  According to the Washington Daily News (Saturday September 7 edition), the System, is no longer rated “low performing” by the skin of its teeth. Six (6) of the thirteen schools continue to have a “D” rating. Forgive us if we are skeptical of the real reason for large, consolidated schools.  By definition, they homogenize the low performing students within a higher performing population to make the result look better.  That leaves us worried about whether low performing students will be ignored in these large schools when the chest pounding comes because the mean scores are better. 

This information alone is enough to justify replacing the majority of the School Board at the next election.  However, the school system continues to provide poor discipline, has sexual orientation problems, fails to teach cursive writing, and continues to teach modern (illogical) mathematics.  The School Board allows the Big Cheese (Superintendent) to control the curriculum without adequate parent/public input.  Is it any wonder the schools are in the academic condition they are in?

There are five of the nine school board members up for election on November 5th.  They all need to be replaced.  There is no opposition to the Republican candidates in Districts 7 (River Road) and 9 (Pinetown).  The contested races are in Districts 1 (Washington), 3 (Belhaven) and 5 (Old Ford).  We are recommending Malissa Polk (District 1), David Hudson a registered Republican running  Unaffiliated (District 3), and Stacey Davis (District 5).   The only way to change education is to remove those who have sat there silently all these years and replace them with active people who have a mind of their own.  We can change education by changing the people who are running education.

The Board of County Commissioners has the same kind of problems as the School Board.  Fake Frankie Waters is the leader of the 5 member clique of nodding heads.  Frankie backed up the School Superintendent by illegally going to Pitt County, setting up a School Building Oversight Committee with himself, the school Superintendent and the Chairman of the School Board, T. W. Allen, as members without the approval or even the notice to the Board of County Commissioners.  John Rebholz, Randy Walker and Democrats Booth and Langley backed up Frankie’s illegal act.

Rebholz and Walker are running for Commissioner in the November elections.  In backing Frankie’s illegal act they are certainly not looking after the parents and tax payers of Beaufort County.   Just as troublesome as their loyalty to Fake Frankie Waters is their liberal belief that public housing will be a good thing for Beaufort County.  Both Rebholz and Walker put themselves on a public housing committee set up by the Beaufort County Commissioners.  They claim they are trying to lower housing costs by starting County-sponsored public housing projects.  Every taxpayer should consider all of the bad things that go along with government sponsored housing.  Electing Walker and Rebholz will get us more socialism.

Randy Walker's wife is a member of the School Board.  A husband-and-wife team is not illegal because no law has been passed against husband and wife teams.  However, we believe this practice is not ethical.  Randy Walker has never voted against his wife.

There are only two conservative Republicans running for County Commissioner.  They are Tandy Dunn and Hood Richardson.