Cheeseman Named Superintendent Of The Year – Really? | Eastern North Carolina Now

OPINION:    

    Superintendent Matthew Cheeseman was named Regional Superintendent of the Year for the 2025-2026 school year as reported in The Washington Daily news: https://www.thewashingtondailynews.com/2025/03/26/cheeseman-named-regional-superintendent-of-the-year/ 

    The Washington Daily News article states that Cheeseman was chosen by the "NC School Superintendents Association from the SE Alliance's Council of Superintendents and was approved by the group comprised of fourteen school district leaders from across southeastern NC". The district is made up of 14 counties in eastern NC. The article expounds upon the merits of Cheeseman, whether accurate or not, as to why he received the recognition. Some of these include that he is recognized for: "strong and effective leadership work"; that he "engages with educators and stakeholders at all levels to ensure that the voices of many are heard"; he is an "advocate for rural southeastern NC"; and that he serves "as an example of integrity". However, to many of the citizens of Beaufort County, nothing could be further from the truth and this award is undeserved as a record of Dr. Cheeseman's actual performance would demonstrate.

    First, we should look at our county schools' report cards. Cheeseman became BCS Superintendent in January of 2019. At that time, we had 12 schools with none underperforming in school year 2019-2020. Currently we have 5 schools underperforming as of school year 2023-2024. This is how we got there:

    School Year      # Schools      #Underperforming Schools

    2019-2020            12                               0

    2020-2021            12                               0

    2021-2022            12                               7

    2022-2023            12                               7

    2023-2024            12                               5

    Source: https://ncreports.ondemand.sas.com/src/?county=Beaufort

    These scores alone should be proof enough that Cheeseman's performance doesn't justify his recognition although it just scratches the surface of further issues. Cheeseman, and the School Board are in violation of state statute as a result of these scores. An evaluation of the superintendent is required by NCGS 115C-333(f)2. and reads as follows:

    115C-333 (f)2

    Local Board Evaluation of Certain Superintendents. - Each year the local board of education shall evaluate the superintendent employed by the local school administrative unit and report to the State Board the results of that evaluation if during that year the State Board designated as low-performing:

    (2) Two or more schools in a local school administrative unit that has no more than 20 schools.

    Cheeseman is required to receive a performance review by the school board due to Beaufort County Schools having more than two schools underperforming. This review is to be sent to the NC Department of Public Instruction (DPI). DPI has never received a review of Cheeseman's performance as confirmed by Blair Rhoades, Communications Director, Office of Communications and Information Services, Division of Chief of Staff, NC DPI on October 14, 2024. Cheeseman is well aware of this requirement but must be perfectly content with his weak School Board that fails year after year to follow state statute and conduct his performance review. This doesn't seem to fit the article's mention of Cheeseman serving "as an example of integrity".

    A review of the effort to build Cheeseman's pet-project, new mega-school replacing Eastern Elementary serves as an example that his leadership is not "strong and effective" or that he is an "advocate for rural southeastern NC". Violations of state statute and incompetence abound in this endeavor. County Commissioner Richardson made a request for the required reports that justify the use of grant funds and the closing of the two schools to consolidate into the new mega-school as required by G. S. 115C-546.11(d) and 115C-72. General Statute 115C-546.11(d) says in its first sentence, "The Department of Public instruction shall review projected enrollment to evaluate the reasonableness of a project's size and scope." Requests were made to the Department of Education but did not result in evidence of an evaluation being conducted. Information from DPI indicated that they do not have and have never produced such a report. That's because the Beaufort County School System did not provide such a report.

    Furthermore, General Statute 115C-72(1) states, "In any question involving the closing or consolidation of any public school, the local board of education of the school, administrative unit in which such school is located shall cause a thorough study of such school to be made, having in mind primarily the welfare of the students to be affected by a proposed closing or consolidation and including in such study, among other factors, geographic conditions, anticipated increase or decrease in school enrollment, the inconvenience or hardship that might result in the pupils to be affected by such closing or consolidation, the cost of providing additional school facilities in the event of such closing or consolidation, and such other factors as the board shall consider germane. Before the entry of any such order of closing or consolidation, the local board of education shall provide for a public hearing in regard to such proposed closing or consolidation, at which hearing the public shall be afforded an opportunity to express their views. Upon the basis of the study so made and after such hearing said board may, in the exercise its discretion, approve the closing or consolidation proposed."

    Regarding the new mega-school, Cheeseman responded by email concerning this law that, "The Board of Education anticipates holding the public hearing(s) on the closing of Eastern ES and John Cotton Tayloe ES at a date in the future." This would appear to violate the spirit of the law at a minimum if it isn't an outright violation of the law itself. Cheeseman would rather accept the money, build his pet-project mega-school, regardless of the cost to our county taxpayers and the detrimental impact it has upon our students and communities. Remember that this school is costing the county (i.e. Beaufort County taxpayers) $10.5 million already and ground has barely been broken. This school had already been in the works without the knowledge or participation of the entire school board or board of county commissioners for years consisting of back-room meetings between Cheeseman and Frankie Waters.

    Furthermore, Cheeseman's appetite to close and consolidate schools was not satisfied with just Eastern ES and John Cotton Tayloe ES. He already had his sights on closing the S. W. Snowden school in Aurora in order to consolidate it with Chocowinity Primary and Chocowinity Middle schools. This drama has been playing out over the past few months but had already begun years ago. Whispers coming out of the superintendent's office, and not resisted by the weak school board, spoke of closing Snowden years ago. The reason given has been due to the decline in students attending Snowden and that a full-time (12 month) principal would not be provided by state funding should enrollment drop below 100 students. Whether intentional or not, upkeep for the facilities at Snowden was held back or not completed resulting in HVAC issues among others that were only alleviated by outside community involvement and School Board member Charles Hickman, one of only two advocates for the school on the board. It appears to be another backroom deal between Cheeseman and the chairman of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners to close the school then build another consolidated school south of the Pamlico adding additional expense to county taxpayers. This would be detrimental to Beaufort County's citizens, students and parents in order to add another bullet point to Cheeseman's resume. It certainly isn't proof of Cheeseman being an "advocate for rural southeastern NC" or serving "as an example of integrity".


    If all of this wasn't bad enough, it just begins to scratch the surface of Cheeseman's incompetence, fraud and abuses he has been part of while serving as superintendent. The school system in Beaufort County was doing well prior to his arrival. Since then, he has created a district that is a hostile work environment based on fear and retaliation. We have seen many of our best teachers choose to retire, leave Beaufort County for positions in other counties or quit teaching altogether. If you don't agree with or go against the superintendent's wishes, then you may work in Pinetown today but tomorrow you work in Aurora. Some teachers who have remained have only done so because private school teaching positions don't pay enough or they need the benefits. A loss of good teachers and principals certainly can be attributed to why we either have parents pulling their students from our public schools for other options in the county or leaving the county. This environment does not demonstrate "strong and effective leadership work" or engagement "with educators and stakeholders at all levels to ensure that the voices of many are heard". Autocracy is the polar opposite of true leadership and engagement.


    This lack of "engagement with educators and stakeholders at all levels to ensure that the voices of many are heard" is readily apparent to anyone who has attended or observed a school board meeting. Although this is equally the fault of the weak school board, Cheeseman has taken their shortcomings to his full advantage. He sits directly beside the chairman of the school board at all meetings. Once the gavel is tapped to begin a meeting, the chairman turns over the overall direction of the meeting to Cheeseman who directs the board in what he desires to do. He has stated that he only needs five (5) board members in his pocket to do whatever he wishes. That has led to many of the issues we see in the school system currently. Additionally, board members may not deliberate, vote or take any action by reference to a document or other item unless copies of the document are made available to the public at the meeting. This means the public has a right to know and understand what is being discussed and voted on by the board per N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-318.13(c). No documentation is provided to the public other than a basic agenda at each school board meeting. Furthermore, the board goes into closed session at the end of every meeting where many issues are discussed or decided on. Closed sessions are only permitted for specific, limited purposes such as discussing individual employees or contracts. Personal requests, grievances and discussion of school board election campaigns have all been topics for discussion in these sessions. This is a violation of the sunshine law as outlined in the Open Meetings Law (G.S. 143-318.11). Every motion to go into closed session must cite one or more of the permissible reasons for going into closed session and state and name or citation of the law that makes the information to be discussed privileged or confidential per N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-318.11(c). This is not done. Minutes of closed sessions are a matter of public record per N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-318.10(e) and may only be withheld from public inspection "so long as public inspection would frustrate the purpose of the closed session". The superintendent is aware of this but chooses either to not advise the board or to ignore this because it does not work in favor of furthering his personal agenda. Cheeseman uses favors in order to get board members to vote for his initiatives. Although having two school board members married to county commissioners is not against the law, it certainly does provide a question of ethics. That is further questionable when school board members have spouses or children working within Beaufort County schools. These individuals vote lock-step with anything Cheeseman asks. This has included moving teachers across schools, making exceptions for certain policies to certain students and other matters related to school consolidation, budget, etc. This is certainly not "an example of integrity" on the part of the superintendent.