S. W. SNOWDEN, NOW IS THE TIME | Eastern North Carolina Now

S. W. SNOWDEN, NOW IS THE TIME

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

The week beginning April 28 is set to determine the future of S. W. Snowden School, and the quality of education in about 25 percent of the area of Beaufort County as well as the future success of the Town of Aurora.  The important dates are Tuesday April 29 at 6:00 PM at the Chocowinity Primary School and Thursday May 1 at 6:00 PM at the S. W. Snowden School in Aurora.  Everyone should show up.

If you are concerned about the horrible quality of education in Beaufort County, or the economic vitality of the Aurora area, you should make every effort to attend both of the above meetings.  Call, email and personally talk to School Board members about keeping Snowden open.

There has been no presentation to anyone comparing the cost of keeping Snowden open and closing it.  This decision is being made the same way the 52.5 million dollar Eastern Elementary is being built.  One person has said “close it” and the weak and submissive school board then took the first vote to close it.  Some school board members were told by the Big Cheese they would get more teachers in their closest school if they voted to close Snowden. That is true but at the expense of students in the Aurora area.  What kind of a person would be willing to steal from others to help himself.

A lot of tax money is at stake.  There are already a lot of bad ideas being presented.  Seats in the Beaufort County School System are only 50 percent full.  Why are we still building schools. The new Eastern Elementary School will be at capacity when it opens next year.  But two schools that are not full are being shut down.  This means we are looking at building more classrooms before Eastern Elementary opens.  This is insane planning.  Fake Frankie Waters, Chairman of the Beaufort County Commissioners, has proposed building a new consolidated school somewhere in the Edward(?) area to take care of three schools, presumably the two at Chocowinity and Snowden.  This is another dumb idea.  Again, we would be building a new school and shutting down three schools.  We would be bussing children about 15 miles from Chocowinity toward Aurora.  There is nothing in this paragraph that makes any sense.  

We have the ethical problem of husbands and wives serving on the School Board and County Commissioners and voting in lock step with each other.  We have a School Board and a Board of County Commissioners that refuse to understand that the school system is only half full. The last thing we need to do is build more schools.  However, the efforts of the majority of the School Board and County Commissioners along with the Big Cheese and Fake Frankie are moving everything toward new school buildings, higher taxes and lower and lower education quality.

This incompetent and corrupt bobsled into the bowels of inferior education and higher taxes can be stopped with public pressure on the school board to keep Snowden open.  If Snowden is closed, you will start hearing about the need to build new schools on the south side.  More spending.

The Conservative Club realized several years ago that our school system is failing.  We recruited school board candidates and formed a Curriculum Committee.  We successfully assisted in the election of several candidates.  Two of those conservative board members voted against closing Snowden.  They are Charles Hickman and Stacy Davis.  Three of our recommended board members voted to close Snowden simply because the Big Cheese asked them to.  They are Gary Carlton, Donald Shreve, and Daniel Hudson.  Should they again vote to close Snowden we will be recruiting their replacements when they next run for office.  We will also be recruiting candidates to run against any other school board members who again vote to close Snowden.

The school board members believe they work for and are responsible to the Big Cheese.  This is a weak board.

Presented below is contact information for board members whom you should call about closing Snowden.  Board members whom we believe are locked into closing Snowden and will not vote to keep it open are: T. W. Allen, Carolyn Walker, Terry Williams and Eltha Booth.  T. W. Allen is joined to the Big Cheese at the hip and has always done what the Cheese tells him to do.  Carolyn Walker is married to Commissioner Randy Walker, and they have relatives who are aspiring for higher positions in the school system.  Terry Williams has relatives who are dependent on the Big Cheese for jobs.  Eltha Booth is the only Democrat on the School Board and is married to Commissioner Ed Booth.

Gary Carlton     252-721-4888   gcarlton@beaufort.k12.nc.us

Donald Shreve  252-725-1131   dshreve@beaufort.k12.nc.us

Daniel Hudson  252-945-8454   dhudson@beaufort.k12.nc.us